la 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 
ON  OUR  FRONT 


"Traveller,  hast  thou  ever  seen  so  great  a  grief  as  mine?' 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 


BY 
WILLIAM  L.  STIDGER 

T.  M.  C.  A.  WORKEB  WITH  THE  A.  E.  F. 


ILLUSTRATED  BT 

JESSIE  GILLESPIE 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1918 


COPTBIGHT,  1918,  BT  CHARLES  SCRIBNER's  SONS 
PUBLISHED  OCTOBER,    1918 


TO 

DOCTOR   ROBERT   FREEMAN 

PIONEEB    EELIGIOC3    WOBK   DIBECTOB 
Or  THE   T.  U.  C.  A. 

AND  THE  HUNDREDS  OF  PREACHER-SECHETARIE3 

WHO    ARE    SERVING    SO    BRAVELT    AND   EFFICIENTLT 

ON   THE   CRUSADE   OF   SERVICE   IN    FRANCE 

AND   TO   THE    CHUECHE8    THAT   SENT   THEM 


2138288 


FOREWORD 

SOME  human  experiences  that  one  has 
in  France  stand  out  like  the  silhouettes  of 
mountain  peaks  against  a  crimson  sunset. 
I  have  tried  in  this  book  to  set  down  some 
of  those  experiences.  I  have  had  but  one 
object  in  so  doing,  and  that  object  has 
been  to  give  the  father  and  mother,  the 
brother  and  sister,  the  wife  and  child  and 
friend  of  the  boys  "Over  There"  an  accu- 
rate heart-picture.  I  have  not  attempted 
the  too  great  task  of  showing  the  soul  of 
the  soldier,  although  I  have  tried  to  pic- 
ture him  at  some  of  his  great  moments 
when  he  forgets  himself  and  rises  to  glori- 
ous heights,  just  as  he  might  do  at  home 
if  the  opportunity  called. 

I  have  tried  to  show  his  experiences  on 
the  transports,  when  he  lands  in  France, 
his  welcome  there,  the  reactions  of  the 


viii  FOREWORD 

trench  life;  something  of  his  self-sacrifice, 
his  willingness  to  serve  even  unto  the  end; 
his  courage,  his  sunshine.  I  have  also  given 
some  other  pictures  of  France  that  aim  to 
show  his  heart-relations  to  his  allies  and  to 
the  folks  at  home. 

If  I  have  done  this,  sufficient  shall  be 
my  reward. 


CONTENTS 

MM 

I.    SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG 1 

II.    SHIP  SILHOUETTES 21 

III.  SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE 28 

IV.  SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL 42 

V.  SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRILEGE     ....  59 

VI.    SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE 69 

VII.    SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE 87 

VIII.    SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW 102 

IX.  SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING    ....  130 

X.    SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 147 

XI.    SKY  SILHOUETTES 163 

XII.    THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR 166 

XIII.  SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE  .  187 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"  Traveller,  hast  tkou  ever  seen  so  great  a  grief  as 

mine?" Frontispiece 

FACING  PAQB 

"What  are  those  dots  on  the  sun?"  Doctor  Freeman 

shouted  to  me 22 

The  upturned  roots  of  an  old  tree  were  just  in  front  .       78 

"The  last  seen  of  Dale  he  was  gathering  together  a 

crowd  of  little  children  " 88 

"The  boys  call  her  fThe  Woman  with  Sandwiches 

and  Sympathy' '      104 

What  was  the  difference?    He  had  gotten  a  letter  .    .     142 

One  night  I  had  the  privilege  of  seeing  a  plane  caught 

by  the  search-light 178 

The  air-raid  had  not  dampened  her  sense  of  humor    .     202 


I 

SILHOUETTES    OF    SONG 


great  transport  was  cutting  its 
sturdy  way  through  three  dangers: 
the  submarine  zone,  a  terrific  storm  beating 
from  the  west  against  its  prow,  and  a  night 
as  dark  as  Erebus  because  of  the  storm, 
with  no  lights  showing. 

I  had  the  midnight-to-four-o'clock-in- 
the-morning  "watch"  and  on  this  night 
I  was  on  the  "aft  fire-control."  Below  me 
on  the  aft  gun-deck,  as  the  rain  pounded, 
the  wind  howled,  and  the  ship  lurched 
to  and  fro,  I  could  see  the  bulky  forms 
of  the  boy  gunners.  There  were  two  to 
each  gun,  two  standing  by,  with  telephone 
pieces  to  their  ears,  and  six  sleeping  on 
the  deck,  ready  for  any  emergency.  The 
greatcoats  made  them  look  like  gaunt  men 
of  the  sea  as  they  huddled  against  their 
guns,  watching,  waiting.  I  wondered  what 


2  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

they  could  see  in  that  impenetrable  dark- 
ness, if  a  U-boat  could  even  survive  in 
that  storm;  but  Uncle  Sam  never  sleeps 
in  these  days,  and  this  transport  was 
especially  worth  watching,  for  it  carried 
a  precious  cargo  of  wounded  officers  and 
men  back  to  the  homeland,  west  bound. 

For  an  hour  I  had  heard  no  sound  from 
the  boys  on  the  gun-deck  below  me.  When 
I  was  on  watch  in  the  daylight  I  knew 
them  to  be  just  a  great  crowd  of  fine, 
buoyant,  happy  American  lads,  full  of 
pranks  and  play  and  laughter,  but  they 
were  strangely  silent  to-night  as  the  ship 
ploughed  through  the  storm.  The  storm 
seemed  to  have  made  men  of  them.  They 
were  just  boys,  but  American  boys  in  these 
days  become  men  overnight,  and  acquit 
themselves  like  men. 

I  watched  their  silent  forms  below  me 
with  a  great  feeling  of  wonderment  and 
pride.  The  ship  lurched  as  it  swung  in  its 
zigzag  course.  Then  suddenly  I  heard  a 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  3 

sweet  sound  coming  from  one  of  the  boys 
below  me.  I  think  that  it  was  big,  raw- 
boned  "Montana"  who  started  it.  It  was 
low  at  first  and,  with  the  storm  and  the 
vibrations  of  the  ship,  I  could  not  catch 
the  words.  The  music  was  strangely  fa- 
miliar to  me.  Then  the  boy  on  the  port 
gun  beside  "Montana"  took  the  old  hymn 
up,  and  then  the  two  reserve  gunners  who 
were  standing  by,  and  then  the  gunners 
on  the  starboard  side,  and  I  caught  the 
old  words  of 

"Jesus,  Saviour,  pilot  me 

Over  life's  tempestuous  sea; 
Unknown  waves  before  me  roll 
Hiding  rock  and  treacherous  shoal; 

Chart  and  compass  came  from  Thee; 

Jesus,  Saviour,  pilot  me.*' 

Above  the  creaking  and  the  vibrations 
of  the  great  ship,  above  the  beating  of  the 
storm,  the  gunners  on  the  deck  below>  all 

unconsciously,  in  that  storm-tossed  night 
i 

were  singing  the  old  hymn  of  their  memories, 


4  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

and  I  think  that  I  never  heard  that  won- 
derful hymn  when  it  sounded  sweeter  to 
me  than  it  did  then,  as  the  second  verse 
came  sweetly  from  the  lips  and  hearts  of 
those  gunners: 

"As  a  mother  stills  her  child 
Thou  canst  hush  the  ocean  wild; 
Boistrous  waves  obey  Thy  will 
When  Thou  sayst  to  them,  *  Be  still.' 
Wondrous  Sovereign  of  the  sea, 
Jesus,  Saviour,  pilot  me." 

We  hear  a  good  deal  of  how  our  boys 
sing  "Hail!  Hail!  The  Gang's  All  Here" 
and  "Where  Do  We  Go  From  Here, 
Boys?"  as  a  ship  is  sinking.  I  know  Ameri- 
can soldiers  pretty  well.  I  do  not  know 
what  they  sang  when  the  Tuscania  went 
down,  but  I  am  glad  to  add  my  picture  to 
the  other  and  to  say  that  I  for  one  heard  a 
crowd  of  American  gunners  singing  "Jesus, 
Saviour,  Pilot  Me  Over  Life's  Tempestuous 
Sea."  The  mothers  and  fathers  of  America 
must  know  that  the  average  American  boy 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  5 

will  have  the  lighter  songs  at  the  end  of 
his  lips,  but  buried  down  deep  in  his  heart 
there  is  a  feeling  of  reverence  for  the  old 
hymns,  and  whether  he  sings  them  aloud 
or  not  they  are  there  singing  in  his  heart; 
and  sometimes,  under  circumstances  such 
as  I  have  described,  he  sings  them  aloud 
in  the  darkness  and  the  storm. 

If  you  do  not  believe  this  because  you 
have  been  told  so  often  by  magazine  corre- 
spondents, who  see  only  the  surface  things, 
that  all  the  boys  sing  is  ragtime,  let  Bishop 
McConnell,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  tell  you  of  that  Sunday  evening 
when,  at  the  invitation  of  General  Byng, 
he  addressed,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  a  great  regiment  of  the 
Scottish  Guards.  That  night,  in  a  shell- 
destroyed  stone  theatre,  he  spoke  to  them 
on  "How  Men  Die."  In  a  week  from  that 
night  more  than  two-thirds  of  them  had 
been  killed.  When  Bishop  McConnell  asked 
them  what  they  would  like  to  sing,  this 


6  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

great  crowd  of  sturdy,  bare-kneed  soldiers 
of  democracy,  who  had  borne  the  brunt  of 
battle  for  three  years,  asked  for  "O  God, 
Our  Help  in  Ages  Past." 

Yes,  I  know  that  the  boys  sing  the  rag- 
time, but  this  must  not  be  the  only  side  of 
the  picture.  They  sing  the  old  hymns,  too, 
and  memories  of  nights  "down  the  line," 
when  I  have  heard  them  in  small  groups 
and  in  great  crowds  singing  the  old,  old 
hymns  of  the  church,  have  burned  their 
silhouettes  into  my  memory  never  to  die. 

One  night  I  remember  being  stopped  by 
a  sentry  at  "Dead  Man's  Curve,"  because 
the  Boche  was  shelling  the  curve  that 
night,  and  we  had  to  stop  until  he  "laid 
off,"  as  the  sentry  told  us.  Between  shells 
there  was  a  great  stillness  on  the  white 
road  that  lay  like  a  silver  thread  under 
the  moonlight.  The  shattered  stone  build- 
ings, with  a  great  cathedral  tower  standing 
like  a  gaunt  ghost  above  the  ruins,  were 
tragically  beautiful  under  that  mellow  light. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  7 

One  almost  forgot  there  was  war  under  the 
charm  of  that  scene  until  "plunk!  plunk! 
plunk!"  the  big  shells  fell  from  time  to 
time.  But  the  thing  that  impressed  me 
most  that  waiting  hour  was  not  the  beauty 
of  the  village  under  the  moonlight,  but  the 
fact  that  the  lone  sentry  who  had  stopped 
us,  and  who  amid  the  shelling  stood  si- 
lently, was  unconsciously  singing  an  old 
hymn  of  the  church,  "Rock  of  Ages, 
Cleft  for  Me."  I  got  down  from  my 
truck  and  walked  over  to  where  he  was 
standing. 

"Great  old  hymn,  isn't  it,  lad?" 

"I'll  say  so,"  was  his  laconic  reply. 

"Belong  to  some  church  back  home?" 
I  asked  him. 

"Folks  do;  Presbyterians,"  he  replied. 

"Like  the  old  hymns?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  it  seems  like  home  to  sing  'em." 

I  didn't  get  to  talk  with  him  for  a  few 
minutes,  for  he  had  to  stop  another  truck. 
Then  he  came  back. 


8  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

"Folks  at  home,  Sis  and  Bill  and  the  kid, 
mother  and  father,  used  to  gather  around 
the  piano  every  Sunday  evening  and  sing 
'em.  Didn't  think  much  of  them  then,  but 
liked  to  sing.  But  they  mean  a  lot  to  me 
over  here,  especially  when  I'm  on  guard  at 
nights  on  this  'Dead  Man's  Curve.'  Seems 
like  they  make  me  stronger."  As  I  walked 
away  I  still  heard  him  humming  "Rock  of 
Ages,  Cleft  for  Me." 

One  of  the  most  vivid  song  silhouettes 
that  I  remember  is  that  of  a  great  crowd 
of  negroes  singing  in  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut. 
There  must  have  been  a  thousand  of  them. 
I  was  to  speak  to  them  on  "Lincoln  Day." 
I  remember  how  their  white  teeth  shone 
through  the  semidarkness  of  that  candle- 
lighted  hut,  and  how  their  eyes  gleamed, 
and  how  their  bodies  swayed  as  they  sang 
the  old  plantation  melodies. 

The  first  song  startled  me  with  the  uni- 
versality of  its  simple  expression.  It  was  an 
adaptation  of  that  old  melody  which  the 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  9 

negroes  have  sung  for  years,  "It's  the  Old- 
Time  Religion." 

A  boy  down  front  led  the  singing.  A  curt 
"Sam,  set  up  a  tune,"  from  the  Tuskegee 
colored  secretary  started  it. 

This  boy  sat  with  his  back  to  the  audi- 
ence. He  didn't  even  turn  around  to  face 
them.  Low  and  sweetly  he  started  singing. 
You  could  hardly  hear  him  at  first.  Then  a 
few  boys  near  him  took  up  the  music.  Then 
a  few  more.  Then  it  gradually  swept  back 
over  that  crowd  of  men  until  every  single 
negro  was  swaying  to  that  simple  music, 
and  then  it  was  that  I  caught  the  almost 
startlingly  appropriate  words: 

"It  is  good  for  a  world  in  trouble; 
It  is  good  for  a  world  in  trouble; 
It  is  good  for  a  world  in  trouble; 
And  it's  good  enough  for  me. 

It's  the  old-time  religion; 
It's  the  old-time  religion; 
It's  the  old-time  religion; 

And  it's  good  enough  for  me. 


10  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

It  was  good  for  my  old  mother; 
It  was  good  for  my  old  mother; 
It  was  good  for  my  old  mother; 
And  it's  good  enough  for  me." 

Then  much  to  my  astonishment  they 
did  something  that  I  have  since  learned  is 
the  very  way  that  these  songs  grew  from 
the  beginning.  They  extemporized  a  verse 
for  the  day,  and  they  did  it  on  the  spot.  I 
made  absolutely  certain  of  that  by  careful 
investigation.  They  sang  this  extra  verse: 

"It  was  good  for  ole  Abe  Lincoln; 

It  was  good  for  ole  Abe  Lincoln; 

It  was  good  for  ole  Abe  Lincoln; 

And  it's  good  enough  for  me." 

"That  first  verse,  'It  is  good  for  a  world 
in  trouble/  is  certainly  a  most  appropri- 
ate one  for  these  times  in  France,"  I  said 
aside  to  the  secretary. 

"Yes,"  he  replied;  "if  ever  this  pore  ole 
worP  needed  the  sustainin'  power  of  the 
religion  of  the  Christ,  it  does  now;  an'  if 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  11 

ever  this  pore  ole  worP  was  in  trouble,  that 
time  suttinly  is  right  now,"  he  added  with 
fervor. 

And  now  I  can  never  think  of  the  world, 
nor  of  the  folks  back  here  at  home,  nor  of 
the  millions  of  our  boys  over  there  that  I 
do  not  hear  the  sweet  voices  of  that  crowd 
of  negroes  singing  reverently  and  fervently : 

"It  is  good  for  a  world  in  trouble; 
It  is  good  for  a  world  in  trouble; 
It  is  good  for  a  world  in  trouble; 
And  it's  good  enough  for  me." 

Another  Silhouette  of  Song  that  stands 
out  against  the  background  of  memory  is 
that  of  a  hymn  that  I  heard  in  Doctor 
Charles  Jefferson's  church  just  before  I 
sailed  for  France.  I  was  lonely.  I  walked 
into  that  great  city  church  a  stranger,  as 
thousands  of  boys  who  have  sailed  from 
New  York  have  done.  I  never  remember 
to  have  been  so  unutterably  lonely  and 
homesick.  It  was  cold  in  the  city,  and  I 


12  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

was  alone.  I  turned  to  a  church.  Thousands 
of  boys  have  done  the  same,  may  the 
mothers  and  fathers  of  America  know,  and 
they  have  found  comfort.  If  the  parents  of 
this  great  nation  could  know  how  well 
their  boys  are  guarded  and  cared  for  in 
New  York  City  before  they  sail,  they  would 
have  a  feeling  of  comfort. 

I  sat  down  in  this  great  church.  I  was 
thinking  more  of  other  Sabbath  mornings 
at  home,  with  my  wife  and  baby,  than  any- 
thing else.  A  hymn  was  announced.  I  stood 
up  mechanically,  but  there  was  no  song  in 
my  throat.  There  was  a  great  lump  of  lone- 
liness only.  But  suddenly  I  listened  to  the 
words  they  were  singing.  Had  they  selected 
that  hymn  just  for  me  ?  It  seemed  so.  It  so 
answered  the  loneliness  in  my  heart  with 
comfort  and  quiet.  That  great  congrega- 
tion was  singing: 

"Peace,  perfect  peace; 
With  loved  ones  far  away; 
In  Jesus'  keeping,  we  are  safe;  and  they." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  13 

A  great  sense  of  peace  settled  over  my 
heart,  and  I  have  quoted  that  old  hymn 
all  over  France  to  the  boys,  and  they  have 
been  comforted..  Many  a  boy  has  asked 
me  to  write  him  a  copy  of  that  verse  to 
stick  in  his  note-book.  It  seemed  to  give  a 
sense  of  comfort  to  the  lads,  for  their  loved 
ones,  too,  were  "far  away,"  and  since  I 
have  come  home  I  find  that  this,  too, 
comes  as  a  great  comfort  hymn  to  those 
who  are  here  lonely  for  their  boys  "over 
there." 

And  who  shall  forget  the  silhouette  of 
approaching  the  shores  of  France  by  night 
as  they  have  sailed  down  along  the  coast, 
cautiously  and  carefully,  to  find  the  open- 
ing of  the  submarine  nets  ?  Who  shall  forget 
the  sense  of  exhilaration  that  the  news  that 
land  was  near  brought?  Who  shall  forget 
the  crowding  to  the  railings  by  all  on 
board  to  scan  anxiously  through  the  night 
for  the  first  sight  of  land  ?  Then  who  shall 
forget  seeing  that  first  light  from  shore 


14  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

flash  out  through  the  darkness  of  night? 
Who  shall  forget  the  red  and  green  and 
white  lights  that  began  to  twinkle,  and 
gleam,  and  flash,  and  signal,  and  call? 
How  beautiful  those  lights  looked  after  the 
long,  dangerous,  eventful,  and  dark  voyage, 
without  a  single  light  showing  on  the  ship ! 
And  who  shall  forget  the  man  along  the 
railing, who  said,  "I  never  knew  before  the 
meaning  of  that  old  song,  'The  Lights 
Along  the  Shore'"?  And  then  who  can 
forget  the  fact  that  suddenly  somebody 
started  to  sing  that  old  hymn,  "The  Lights 
Along  the  Shore,"  and  of  how  it  swept 
along  the  lower  decks,  and  then  to  the 
upper  decks,  until  a  whole  ship-load  of 
people  was  singing  it?  And  then  who  shall 
forget  how  somebody  else  started  "Let  the 
Lower  Lights  Be  Burning"?  Can  such 
scenes  ever  be  obliterated  from  one's  mem- 
ory? No,  not  forever.  That  silhouette  re- 
mains eternally ! 

Five  great  transports  were  in.  They  were 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  15 

lined  up  along  the  docks  in  the  locks.  A 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretary  was  standing  on  the 
docks  yelling  up  a  word  of  welcome  to  the 
crowded  railings  of  the  great  transports. 
The  boats  were  not  "cleared"  as  yet.  It 
would  take  an  hour,  and  the  secretary 
knew  that  something  must  be  done,  so  he 
started  to  lead  first  one  ship  and  then  an- 
other in  singing. 

"What  shall  we  sing,  boys?"  he  would 
shout  up  to  them  from  the  docks  below. 
Some  fellow  from  the  railing  yelled,  "Keep 
the  Home  Fires  Burning,"  and  that  fine 
song  rang  out  from  five  thousand  throats. 
I  have  heard  it  sung  in  the  camps  at  home, 
I  have  heard  it  sung  in  great  huts  in  France, 
but  I  never  heard  it  when  it  sounded  so 
significant  and  so  sweet  in  its  mighty 
volume  as  it  sounded  coming  from  that 
great  khaki-lined  transport,  which  had 
just  landed  an  hour  before  in  France.  I 
stood  beside  the  song-leader  there  on  the 
docks  looking  up  at  that  great  mass  of 


16  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

American  humanity,  a  hundred  feet  above 
us,  so  far  away  that  we  could  not  recognize 
individual  faces,  on  the  high  decks  of  one 
of  the  largest  ships  that  sails  the  seas,  and 
as  that  sweet  song  of  war  swept  out  over 
the  docks  and  across  the  white  town,  and 
back  across  the  Atlantic,  I  said  to  myself: 
"That  volume  sounds  as  if  it  could  make 
itself  heard  back  home." 

The  man  beside  me  said:  "The  folks 
back  home  hear  it  all  right,  for  they  are 
eagerly  listening  for  every  sound  that  comes 
from  that  crowd  of  boys.  Yes,  the  folks  back 
home  hear  it,  and  they'll  'keep  the  home 
fires  burning'  all  right.  God  bless  them !" 

The  last  Silhouette  of  Song  stands  out 
against  a  background  of  green  trees  and 
spring,  and  the  odor  of  a  hospital,  and  Red 
Cross  nurses  going  and  coming,  and  boys 
lying  in  white  robes  everywhere.  My  friend 
the  song-leader  had  gone  with  me  to  hold 
the  vesper  service  in  the  hospital.  Then 
we  visited  in  the  wards  in  order  to  see  those 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  17 

who  were  so  severely  wounded  that  they 
could  not  get  to  the  service. 

There  was  a  little  group  of  men  in  one 
room.  The  first  thing  I  knew  my  friend  had 
them  singing.  At  first  they  took  to  it  awk- 
wardly. Then  more  courageously.  Then 
sweetly  there  rang  through  the  hospital 
the  strains  of  "My  Daddy  Over  There." 

It  melted  my  heart,  for  I  have  a  baby 
girl  at  home  who  says  to  the  neighbors, 
"My  daddy  is  the  prettiest  man  in  the 
world,"  and  believes  it.  I  said  to  Cray: 
"Why  did  you  sing  that  particular  song?" 

"Oh,"  he  replied,  "my  baby's  name  is 
*  Betty,'  and  I  found  a  guy  whose  baby's 
name  is  'Betty'  too,  and  we  had  a  sort  of 
club  formed;  and  another  guy  had  a  baby 
boy,  and  then  I  just  thought  they'd  like 
to  sing  'My  Daddy  Over  There.'  But  we 
ended  up  with  'Jesus,  Lover  of  My  Soul,' 
so  that  ought  to  suit  you." 

"Suit  me,  man?  Why  I  got  a  'Betty' 
baby  of  my  own,  and  that  'Daddy  Over 


18  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

There'  song  you  sang  is  the  sweetest  thing 
I've  heard  in  France,  and  it  will  help  those 
daddies  more  than  a  hymn  would.  I'm  glad 
you  got  them  to  singing." 

And  now  I'm  back  home,  and  I  thought 
the  Silhouettes  of  Song  were  all  over,  but  I 
stepped  into  a  church  the  other  Sunday. 
Up  high  above  the  sacred  altars  of  that 
church  fluttered  a  beautiful  silk  service 
flag.  It  was  starred  in  the  shape  of  a  letter 
"S."  In  the  circle  of  each  "S"  was  a  red 
cross.  The  church  had  two  members  in  the 
Red  Cross.  Above  the  "S"  and  below  it 
were  two  red  triangles.  The  church  had 
men  in  the  service  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Then 
grouped  about  the  "S"  were  the  stars  of 
boys  in  the  service. 

As  I  looked  up  at  this  cross  a  flood  of 
memories  swept  over  me.  I  could  not  keep 
back  the  tears.  All  the  love,  all  the  loneli- 
ness, all  the  heartache,  all  the  pride,  all 
the  hope  of  the  folks  at  home,  their  rever- 
ence, their  loyalty,  was  summed  up  in  that 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SONG  19 

flag.  I  stood  to  sing,  my  eyes  brimming 
with  tears.  The  great  congregation  started 
that  beautifully  sweet  hymn  that  is  being 
sung  all  over  America  in  the  churches  in 
loving  memory  of  the  boys  over  there: 

"God  save  our  splendid  men, 
Send  them  safe  home  again, 

God  save  our  men. 
Make  them  victorious, 
Patient  and  chivalrous, 
They  are  so  dear  to  us, 

God  save  our  men. 

God  keep  our  own  dear  men, 
From  every  stain  of  sin, 

God  keep  our  men. 
When  Satan  would  allure, 
When  tempted,  keep  them  pure, 
Be  their  protection  sure — 

God  keep  our  men. 

God  hold  our  precious  men, 
And  love  them  to  the  end, 

God  hold  our  men. 
Held  in  Thine  arms  so  strong 
To  Thee  they  all  belong. 
This  ever  be  our  song: 

God  hold  our  men." 


20  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

I  stood  the  pressure  until  that  great  con- 
gregation came  to  that  line  "They  are  so 
dear  to  us,"  and  the  voice  of  the  mother 
beside  me  broke,  and  she  had  to  stop. 
Then  I  had  to  stop,  too,  and  we  looked  at 
each  other  through  our  tears  and  smiled 
and  understood,  so  that  when  she  sweetly 
said,  "I  have  a  boy  over  there,"  her  words 
were  superfluous.  And  so  I  have  added 
another  memory  of  song  to  the  hours  that 
will  never  die. 


II 

SHIP    SILHOUETTES 

TT  was  nearing  the  dawn,  and  flaming 
•*•  heralds  gave  promise  of  a  brilliant  day 
coming  up  out  of  France  to  the  east.  Three 
of  us  stood  in  the  "crow's-nest"  on  an 
American  transport,  where  we  had  been 
standing  our  "watch"  since  four  o'clock 
that  morning. 

Suddenly  as  we  peered  through  our  glasses 
off  to  the  west  we  saw  the  masts  of  a  great 
cruiser  creeping  above  the  horizon  of  the 
sea.  We  reported  it  to  the  "bridge,"  where 
it  was  confirmed.  Then  in  a  few  minutes 
we  saw  another  mast,  and  then  another, 
and  another;  four,  five,  six,  seven,  eight, 
nine,  ten,  twenty  —  five,  six  —  twenty-six 
ships  coming  up  over  the  western  horizon, 
bound  for  France,  bearing  the  most  precious 
burden  that  ever  a  caravan  of  the  sea  car- 
ried across  the  waters  of  the  deep;  American 
boys !  Your  boys ! 

21 


22  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

It  was  a  marvellous  sight.  We  had  been 
so  intently  watching  this  that  we  had 
forgotten  about  the  dawn.  Then  we  turned 
for  a  minute,  and  off  to  the  east  a  brilliant 
red  dawn  was  splashing  its  way  out  of  the 
sea. 

"What  are  those  dots  on  the  sun?" 
Doctor  Freeman  shouted  to  me. 

"Why,  I  believe  it's  the  convoy  of  de- 
stroyers coming  out  to  meet  those  trans- 
ports," I  replied. 

Then  before  our  eyes,  up  out  of  the 
eastern  horizon,  just  as  we  had  watched 
the  transports  and  the  cruiser  come  up 
over  the  western  horizon,  those  slender 
guardians  of  the  deep  came  toward  us  in 
formation.  There  were  ten  of  them,  and  they 
met  the  great  American  convoy  just  abreast 
our  transport.  We  saw  the  American  flag 
fly  to  the  winds  on  each  ship,  and  the  flash- 
ing of  signal-lights  even  in  the  dawning. 

"Those  destroyers  coming  out  of  the 
east  against  that  sunrise  remind  me  of  the 


"What  are  those  dots  on  the  sun?"  Doctor  Freeman 
shouted  to  me. 


SHIP  SILHOUETTES  23 

experiences  one  has  in  France  in  these 
vivid  war  days,'*  I  said  to  my  fellow  watcher 
in  the  "crow's-nest." 

"How  is  that?" 

"They  stand  out  like  the  Silhouettes  of 
Mountain  Peaks  against  a  crimson  sunrise," 
I  replied. 

And  so  have  many  Silhouettes  of  the  Sea 
stood  out. 

There  was  the  afternoon  that  we  stood 
on  the  deck  of  a  ship  bound  for  France. 
The  voyage  had  been  full  of  dangers. 
Submarines  had  harassed  us  for  days.  One 
night  such  a  lurch  came  to  the  ship  as  threw 
everybody  about  in  their  staterooms.  We 
thought  it  was  a  storm  until  the  morning 
came,  and  we  were  informed  that  it  was 
a  sudden  lurch  to  avoid  a  submarine.  The 
voyage  had  been  full  of  uneasiness,  and 
now  we  were  coming  to  the  most  dangerous 
part  of  it,  the  submarine  zone. 

Everybody  was  on  deck.  It  was  Sunday 
afternoon.  Suddenly  off  to  the  east  several 


24  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

spots  appeared  on  the  horizon.  What  were 
they,  friendly  craft  or  enemy  ships? 

Nobody  knew,  not  even  the  captain. 
There  was  a  wave  of  uneasiness  over  the 
boat. 

Speculation  was  rife. 

Then  we  saw  the  signal  boy  go  aft,  and 
in  a  moment  the  tricolor  of  France  was 
fluttering  in  the  winds,  and  we  knew  that 
the  approaching  craft  were  friendly.  Then 
through  powerful  glasses  we  could  make 
them  out  to  be  long,  low-lying,  lithe,  swift 
destroyers  coming  out  to  meet  us.  They 
were  a  welcome  sight.  Like  "hounds  of  the 
sea"  they  came,  long  and  lean.  Headed 
straight  for  us,  they  came  like  the  winds. 
Then  suddenly  a  slight  mist  began  to  fall, 
but  not  enough  to  obscure  either  the  de- 
stroyers or  the  sun.  Through  this  mist  the 
sun  burned  its  way,  and  almost  as  if  a  mir- 
acle had  been  performed  by  some  master 
artist,  a  beautiful  rainbow  arched  the  sky 
to  the  east,  and  under  the  arch  of  this 


SHIP  SILHOUETTES  25 

rainbow  fleetly  sailed  those  approaching 
destroyers. 

It  was  a  beautiful  sight,  a  Silhouette  of 
the  Sea  never  to  be  forgotten  while  memory 
lasts.  The  French  flag  fluttered,  the  band 
started  to  play  the  "Marseillaise,"  and  a 
ship-load  of  happy  people  sang  it. 

A  sense  of  peace  settled  down  over  us 
all.  The  rainbow,  covenant  of  old,  promise 
of  the  eternal  God  to  his  people,  seemed 
to  have  new  significance  that  memorable 
day. 

Another  Silhouette  of  the  Sea !  Troops 
are  expected  in  at  a  certain  port  of  entry. 
The  camp  has  been  emptied  of  ten  thou- 
sand men.  That  means  but  one  thing,  that 
new  troops  are  expected.  The  great  dirigi- 
bles sailed  out  a  few  hours  ago.  The  sea- 
planes followed.  Thousands  of  American 
men  and  women  lined  the  docks  waiting, 
peering  with  anxious  eyes  out  toward  the 
"point."  Here  at  this  point  a  great  cape 
jutted  out  into  the  ocean,  and  around  this 


26  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

cape  we  were  accustomed  to  catch  sight 
of  the  convoys  first. 

A  sense  of  great  expectancy  was  upon 
us.  We  had  heard  rumors  of  submarines  off 
the  shore  for  several  days.  Then  suddenly 
we  heard  a  terrific  cannonading,  and  we 
knew  that  the  transports  and  the  convoys 
were  in  a  battle  with  the  U-boats  that 
had  lain  in  wait  for  them.  An  anxious  hour 
passed.  The  sun  was  setting  and  the  west 
was  a  great  rose  blanket. 

Then  a  shout  went  up  far  down  the  line 
of  waiting  Americans  as  the  first  great 
transport  swung  around  the  cape.  Then 
another,  and  a  third  and  a  fourth,  and 
finally  a  fifth;  great  gray  bulks,  two  of 
them  camouflaged  until  you  could  not 
tell  whether  they  were  little  destroyers  or 
a  group  of  destroyers  on  one  big  ship.  Then 
they  got  near  enough  to  see  the  American 
boys,  thousands  of  them,  lining  the  rail- 
ings. Through  the  glasses  we  could  make 
out  the  names  of  the  transports.  They  were 


SHIP  SILHOUETTES  27 

some  of  the  largest  that  sail  the  Atlantic. 
When  as  they  came  slowly  in  on  the  full 
tide,  with  that  rose  sunset  back  of  them, 
the  bands  on  their  decks  playing  across  the 
waters,  and  five  thousand  boys  on  the  first 
boat  singing  "Keep  the  Home  Fires  Burn- 
ing," then  the  "Marseillaise,"  and  finally 
"The  Star-Spangled  Banner,"  in  which  the 
crowd  on  the  shore  joined,  there  was  a 
Silhouette  of  the  Sea  that  burned  its  way 
into  our  souls. 

There  were  the  great  ships,  and  beyond 
them  the  cape,  and  beyond  that  the 
hovering  dirigibles,  and  beyond  them  the 
great  bird  seaplanes,  and  beyond  them  the 
background  of  a  rose-colored  sky,  and 
beyond  that  the  memories  of  home. 


Ill 

SILHOUETTES    OF    SACRIFICE 

Tj^VERY  day  for  two  months,  February 
•*-•'  and  March,  sometimes  when  the  roads 
were  hub-deep  with  mud,  and  sometimes 
when  the  roads  were  a  glare  of  ice  and  snow 
and  driving  the  big  truck  was  dangerous 
work,  we  passed  the  crucifix. 

It  was  the  guide-post  where  four  roads 
forked.  One  road  went  up  to  the  old  mon- 
astery, where  we  had,  in  one  corner,  a 
canteen.  Another  road  led  down  toward 
divisional  headquarters.  Another  road  led 
into  Toul,  and  a  fourth  led  directly  toward 
the  German  lines,  over  which,  if  we  had 
driven  far  enough,  as  we  started  to  do  one 
night  in  the  dark,  we  could  have  gone 
straight  to  Berlin. 

The  first  night  that  I  went  "down  the 
line"  alone  with  a  truck-load  I  was  trem- 
bling inside  about  directions.  The  divisional 
man  said:  "Go  straight  out  the  east  gate  of 

28 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         29 

the  city,  down  the  road  until  you  come  to 
the  cross  at  the  forks  of  the  road.  Take  the 
turn  to  the  left." 

But  even  with  these  directions  I  was  not 
certain.  I  was  frankly  afraid,  for  I  knew 
that  a  wrong  turn  would  take  me  into 
German  lines.  I  did  not  like  that  prospect 
at  all. 

I  drove  the  big  car  cautiously  through  the 
night.  There  were  no  lights,  and  at  best 
it  was  not  easy  driving.  This  night  was  im- 
penetrably dark.  When  I  came  to  the  cross- 
roads I  stopped  the  machine  and  climbed 
down.  I  wanted  to  make  sure  of  the  direc- 
tions, and  they  were  printed  in  French  on 
the  sign-board  that  was  near  the  crucifix 
about  which  he  had  told  me. 

I  got  my  directions  all  right,  and  then, 
moved  by  curiosity,  flashed  my  pocket- 
light  on  the  figure  of  the  bronze  Christ  on 
the  crucifix  there  at  the  crossroads  guide- 
post.  There  was  an  inscription.  Laboriously 
finding  each  small  letter  with  my  flash  hi 


30  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

the  darkness,  my  engine  panting  off  to  the 
side  of  the  road,  I  spelled  it  all  out: 

"Traveller,  hast  thou  ever  seen  so  great 
a  grief  as  mine?" 

Off  in  the  near  distance  the  star-shells 
were  lighting  up  No  Man's  Land.  "Trav- 
eller, hast  thou  ever  seen  so  great  a  grief 
as  mine  ?  "  they  seemed  to  say  to  me. 

I  climbed  into  the  machine  and  started 
on. 

Suddenly  I  heard  the  purring  of  Boche 
planes  overhead.  One  gets  so  that  he  can 
distinguish  the  difference  between  French 
planes  and  Boche  planes.  These  were  Boche 
planes,  and  they  were  bent  on  mischief. 
Then  the  search-lights  began  to  play  in  the 
sky  over  me.  But  they  were  too  late,  for 
hardly  had  I  started  on  my  way  when 
"Boom!  boom!  boom!  boom!"  one  after 
another,  ten  bombs  were  dropped,  and  as 
each  dropped  it  lighted  up  the  surround- 
ing country  like  a  great  city  in  flames. 

As  I  saw  this  awful  desecration  of  the 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         31 

land  the  phrase  of  the  cross  seemed  to  sing 
in  unison  with  the  beating  of  the  engine 
of  my  truck: 

"Traveller,  hast  tLou  ever  seen  so  great 
a  grief  as  mine  ?  " 

Suddenly  out  of  the  night  crept  an  am- 
bulance train,  which  passed  my  slower  and 
larger  machine.  They  had  no  time  to  wait 
for  me.  They  were  American  boys  on  their 
errands  of  mercy,  and  the  front  was  calling 
them.  I  knew  that  something  must  be 
going  on  off  toward  the  front  lines,  for  the 
rumbling  of  the  big  guns  had  been  going 
on  for  an  hour.  As  these  ambulances  passed 
me  —  more  than  twenty-five  of  them  passed 
as  silent  ships  pass  in  the  night  —  that 
phrase  kept  singing:  "Traveller,  hast  thou 
ever  seen  so  great  a  grief  as  mine?" 

Then  I  drove  a  bit  farther  on  my  way, 
and  off  across  a  field  I  saw  the  walls  of  a 
great  hospital.  It  was  an  evacuation  hos- 
pital, and  I  had  visited  in  its  wards  many 
times  after  a  raid,  when  hundreds  of  our 


32  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

boys  had  been  brought  in  every  night  and 
day,  with  four  shifts  of  doctors  kept  busy 
day  and  night  in  the  operating-room  caring 
for  them.  As  I  thought  of  all  that  I  had 
seen  in  that  hospital,  again  that  singing 
phrase  of  the  crucifix  at  the  crossroads 
was  on  my  lips:  "Traveller,  hast  thou  ever 
seen  so  great  a  grief  as  mine  ? " 

A  mile  farther,  and  just  a  few  feet  from 
the  road,  I  passed  a  little  "God's  acre" 
that  I  knew  so  well.  As  its  full  meaning 
swept  over  me  there  in  the  darkness  of 
that  night,  the  heartache  and  loneliness  of 
the  folks  at  home  whose  American  boys 
were  lying  there,  some  two  hundred  of 
them,  the  old  crucifix  phrase  expressed  it  all : 
"Traveller,  hast  thou  ever  seen  so  great 
a  grief  as  mine  ?  " 

And,  somehow,  as  I  drove  back  by  the 
crucifix  in  the  darkness  of  the  next  morning, 
about  two  o'clock,  I  had  to  stop  again  and 
with  my  flash-light  spell  out  the  lettering 
on  the  cross. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         33 

Then  suddenly  it  dawned  on  me  that 
this  was  France  speaking  to  America: 
"Traveller,  hast  thou  ever  seen  so  great  a 
grief  as  mine  ?  " 

And  when  I  paused  in  the  darkness  of 
that  night  and  thought  of  the  one  million 
and  a  quarter  of  the  best  manhood  of  France 
who  had  given  their  lives  for  the  precious 
things  that  we  hold  most  dear:  our  homes, 
our  children,  our  liberty,  our  democracy; 
and  when  I  thought  that  France  had  saved 
that  for  us;  and  when  I  remembered  the 
funeral  processions  that  I  had  seen  every 
day  since  I  had  been  in  France,  and  when 
I  remembered  the  women  doing  the  work 
of  men,  handling  the  baggage  of  France, 
ploughing  the  fields  of  France;  doing  the 
work  of  men  because  the  men  were  all 
either  killed  or  at  the  front;  when  I  remem- 
bered the  little  fatherless  children  that  I 
had  seen  all  over  France,  whose  sad  eyes 
looked  up  into  mine  everywhere  I  went; 
and  when  I  remembered  the  young  widows 


34  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

(every  woman  of  France  seems  to  be  in 
black) ;  and  when  I  remembered  the  thou- 
sands of  blind  men  and  boys  that  I  had 
seen  being  led  helplessly  about  the  streets 
of  the  cities  and  villages  of  France;  and 
when  I  remembered  that  lonely  wife  that 
one  Sunday  afternoon  in  Toul  I  had 
watched  go  and  kneel  beside  a  little  mound 
and  place  flowers  there  —  the  dates  on  the 
stone  of  which  I  later  saw  were  "March, 
1916,"  then  I  cried  aloud  in  the  darkness 
as  I  realized  the  tremendous  sacrifice  that 
France  has  made  for  the  world,  as  well  as 
England  and  Belgium.  "No,  France !  No, 
England  !  No,  little  Belgium  !  this  traveller 
has  never  seen  so  great  a  grief  as  thine !" 

"No,  mothers  and  fathers,  little  children, 
wives,  brothers,  sisters  of  France,  and  Eng- 
land, and  Belgium,  this  traveller,  America, 
has  never  seen  so  great  a  grief  as  thine ! " 

And  later  I  learned,  after  living  in  the 
Toul  sector  for  two  months,  that  the  chal- 
lenging sentence  on  the  crucifix  had  been 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         35 

read  by  nearly  every  boy  who  had  passed 
it;  and  all  had.  Either  he  had  read  it  him- 
self or  it  had  been  quoted  to  him,  and  this 
one  crucifix  question  had  much  to  do  with 
challenging  the  boys  who  passed  it  to  a  new 
understanding  of  all  that  France  had  passed 
through  in  the  war. 

The  American  boys  have  learned  to  re- 
spect the  French  soldier  because  of  the  sac- 
rifice that  he  has  made.  The  American  sol- 
dier remembers  that  crowd  of  men  called 
"Kitchener's  Mob,"  which  Kitchener  sent 
into  the  trenches  of  France  to  stem  the  tide 
of  inhumanity,  and  to  whom  he  gave  a 
message:  "Go!  Sacrifice  yourselves  while 
I  raise  an  army  in  England  !"  The  American 
soldier  knows  all  of  this.  He  knows  that 
little  Belgium  might  have  said  to  all  the 
world,  "The  forces  were  too  great  for  us," 
and  she  could  have  stepped  aside  and  the 
world  would  have  forgiven  her. 

But  instead  she  chose  deliberately  to 
sacrifice  herself  for  the  cause  of  freedom, 


36  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

and  sacrifice  herself  she  did.  And  that  sen- 
tence on  the  crossroads  crucifix  in  the  Toul 
sector,  day  after  day,  sends  its  reminder 
into  the  heart  of  the  American  soldiers, 
who  stop  their  trucks  and  their  ammuni- 
tion wagons,  pause  their  weary  marches  to 
read  it;  sends  its  reminder  of  the  sacrifices 
that  our  allies  have  already  made,  and  the 
sacrifices  that  we  may  be  called  upon  to 
make.  "Traveller,  hast  thou  ever  seen  so 
great  a  grief  as  mine?" 

And  the  American  officer  and  soldier 
must  admit  that  he  has  not;  and  he  prays 
God  silently  in  the  night  as  he  rides  by  on 
his  horse,  or  as  he  drives  by  on  his  motor- 
truck, or  as  he  flashes  by  on  his  motor- 
cycle, though  they  may  be  willing  to 
suffer  as  France  has  suffered,  if  need  be, 
prays  God  that  that  may  never  be  neces- 
sary, for  the  American  soldier,  since  he 
has  been  in  France,  has  seen  what  suffering 
means. 

And  so  that  crossroads  crucifix  stands 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         37 

out  against  the  lurid  night  of  France,  with 
its  reminder  constantly  before  the  Ameri- 
can soldier,  and  it  tends  to  make  him  more 
gentle  with  French  children  and  women, 
and  more  kindly  with  French  men.  There 
is  a  new  understanding  of  each  other,  a  new 
cement  of  friendship  binding  our  allies 
together  hi  France;  there  is  a  new  world- 
wide brotherhood  breaking  across  the  hori- 
zon of  time,  coming  through  sacrifice. 

The  world  is  once  again  being  atoned 
for.  Its  sin  is  being  washed  away.  Innocent 
men  are  suffering  that  humanity  may  be 
saved. 

The  last  time  I  saw  this  cross  was  by 
night.  I  had  seen  it  first  at  night,  and  fitting 
it  was  that  I  should  see  it  last  at  night. 
There  was  a  terrible  bombardment  down 
the  lines.  Hundreds  of  American  boys  had 
been  killed.  One  was  wounded  who  was 
a  son  of  one  of  the  foremost  Americans. 
News  of  the  fight  had  been  coming  in  to 
us  all  day-long.  Night  came  and  "runners" 


38  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

were  still  bringing  in  the  gruesome  details. 
The  ambulances  were  running  in  a  continu- 
ous procession.  We  had  seen  things  that  day 
and  night  that  made  our  hearts  sick.  We 
had  seen  American  boys  white  and  uncon- 
scious. We  had  seen  every  available  .room 
in  the  great  evacuation  hospital  crowded. 
We  had  been  told  that  a  hundred  surgical 
cases  were  in  the  hospital,  mostly  shrapnel 
wounds,  and  that  every  available  doctor 
and  nurse  was  working  night  and  day. 

We  had  seen,  under  one  snow-covered 
canvas,  six  boys  who  had  been  killed  by 
one  shell  early  that  morning  —  boys  that 
the  night  before  we  had  talked  with  down 
in  a  front-line  hut  —  boys  who  had  been 
killed  in  their  billet  in  one  room.  We  had 
seen  a  captain  come  staggering  into  our  hut 
wet  to  the  skin,  soaked  with  blood,  his  hair 
dishevelled,  his  face  haggard.  He  had  been 
fighting  since  three  o'clock  that  morning. 
He  had  been  shell-shocked,  and  had  been 
sent  into  the  hospital. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         39 

"My  God !"  he  cried,  "I  saw  every  offi- 
cer in  my  company  killed.  First  it  was  my 
first  lieutenant.  They  got  him  in  the  head. 
Then  about  ten  o'clock  I  saw  my  second 
lieutenant  fall.  Then  early  in  the  afternoon 
my  top-sergeant  got  a  bayonet,  and  a 
hand-grenade  got  a  group  of  my  non- 
commissioned officers.  Hah*  of  my  boys  are 
gone." 

Then  he  sat  down  and  we  got  him  some 
hot  chocolate.  This  seemed  to 'revive  his 
spirits,  and  he  said:  "But,  thank  God,  we 
licked  them !  We  licked  them  at  their  own 
game !  We  got  them  six  to  one,  and  drove 
them  back !  No  Man's  Land  is  thick  with 
their  beastly  bodies.  They  are  hanging  on 
the  wires  out  there  like  trapped  rabbits !" 

Then  the  thoughts  of  his  own  officers 
came  back. 

"My  God !  Now  we  know  what  war 
means.  We've  been  playing  at  war  up  to 
this  time.  Now  we've  got  to  suffer!  Then 
we'll  know  what  it  all  means."  He  was  half- 


40  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

delirious,  we  could  see,  and  sent  for  an 
ambulance. 

As  I  drove  home  that  night  I  passed  the 
crossroads  crucifix.  This  time  I  needed  no 
lights  to  guide  me.  The  whole  horizon  was 
alight  with  bursting  shells  and  Very  lights. 
Long  before  I  got  to  it  I  could  see  the  gaunt 
form  of  the  cross  reaching  its  black  but 
comforting  arms  up  against  the  background 
of  lurid  light  along  the  front  where  I  knew 
that  American  men  were  dying  for  me. 
The  picture  of  that  wayside  cross,  looming 
against  the  lurid  light  of  battle,  shall 
never  die  in  my  memory. 

It  was  the  silhouette  of  France  and 
America  suffering  together,  a  silhouette 
standing  out  against  a  livid  horizon  of  fire. 

I  needed  no  tiny  pocket  search-light  to 
read  the  words  on  the  cross.  They  had 
already  burned  their  way  into  my  heart 
and  into  the  hearts  of  that  whole  division 
of  American  soldiers,  that  division  which 
has  since  so  distinguished  itself  at  Belleau 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRIFICE         41 

Woods  !  But  now  America  has  a  new  under- 
standing of  the  meaning  of  that  sentence, 
for  America,  too,  is  suffering,  and  she  is 
sacrificing. 

"Traveller,  hast  thou  ever  seen  so  great 
a  grief  as  mine?" 

"Yes,  France;  we  understand  now." 


IV 

SILHOUETTES    SPIRITUAL 

TT  was  the  gas  ward.  I  had  held  a  vesper 
-*•  service  that  evening  and  had  had  a 
strange  experience.  Just  before  the  service 
I  had  been  introduced  to  a  lad  who  said  to 
the  chaplain  who  introduced  me  that  he 
was  a  member  of  my  denomination. 

The  boy  could  not  speak  above  a  whis- 
per. He  was  gassed  horribly,  and  in  addi- 
tion to  his  lungs  being  burned  out  and  his 
throat,  his  face  and  neck  were  scarred. 

"I  have  as  many  scars  on  my  lungs  as 
I  have  on  my  face,'*  he  said  quite  simply. 
I  had  to  bend  close  to  hear  him.  He  could 
not  talk  loud  enough  to  have  awakened  a 
sleeping  child. 

He  said  to  me:  "I  used  to  be  leader 
of  the  choir  at  home.  At  college  I  was  in 
the  glee-club,  and  whenever  we  had  any 
singin'  at  the  fraternity  house  they  al- 

42 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  43 

ways  expected  me  to  lead  it.  Since  I  came 
into  the  army  the  boys  in  my  outfit  have 
depended  upon  me  for  all  the  music.  In 
camp  back  home  I  led  the  singing.  Even 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  always  counted  on  me  to 
lead  the  singing  in  the  religious  meetings. 
Many's  the  time  I  have  cheered  the  boys 
comin*  over  on  the  transport  and  in  camp 
by  singin'  when  they  were  blue.  But  I 
can't  sing  any  more.  Sometimes  I  get  pretty 
blue  over  that.  But  I'll  be  at  your  meeting 
this  evening,  anyway,  and  I'll  be  right  down 
on  the  front  seat  as  near  the  piano  as  I  can 
get.  Watch  for  me." 

And  sure  enough  that  night,  when  the 
vesper  service  started,  he  was  right  there. 
I  smiled  at  him  and  he  smiled  back. 

I  announced  the  first  hymn.  The  crowd 
started  to  sing.  Suddenly  I  looked  toward 
him.  We  were  singing  "Softly  Now  the  Light 
of  Day  Fades  Upon  My  Sight  Away."  His 
book  was  up,  his  lips  were  moving,  but  no 
sound  was  coming.  That  sight  nearly  broke 


44  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

my  heart.  To  see  that  boy,  whose  whole 
passion  in  the  past  had  been  to  sing,  whose 
voice  the  cruel  gas  had  burned  out,  started 
emotions  throbbing  in  me  that  blurred  my 
eyes.  I  couldn't  sing  another  note  myself. 
My  voice  was  choked  at  the  sight.  A  lump 
came  every  time  I  looked  at  him  there  with 
that  book  up  in  front  of  him,  a  lump  that 
I  could  not  get  out  of  my  throat.  I  dared 
not  look  in  his  direction. 

After  the  service  was  over  I  went  up  to 
him.  I  knew  that  he  needed  a  bit  of  laughter 
now.  I  knew  that  I  did,  too.  So  I  said  to 
him:  "Lad,  I  don't  know  what  I  would 
have  done  if  you  hadn't  helped  us  out  on 
the  singing  this  evening." 

He  looked  at  me  with  infinite  pathos  and 
sorrow  in  his  eyes.  Then  a  look  of  triumph 
came  into  them,  and  he  looked  up  and 
whispered  through  his  rasped  voice:  "I 
may  not  be  able  to  make  much  noise  any 
more,  and  I  may  never  be  able  to  lead  the 
choir  again,  but  I'll  always  have  singing 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  45 

in  my  soul,  sir !  I'll  always  have  singing  in 
my  soul !" 

And  so  it  is  with  the  whole  American 
army  in  France  — it  always  has  singing  in 
its  soul,  and  courage,  and  manliness,  and 
daring,  and  hope.  That  kind  of  an  army 
can  never  be  defeated.  And  no  army  in  the 
world,  and  no  power,  can  stand  long  be- 
fore that  kind  of  an  army. 

That  kind  of  an  army  doesn't  have  to  be 
sent  into  battle  with  a  barrage  of  shells  in 
front  of  it  and  a  barrage  of  shells  back  of 
it  to  force  it  in,  as  the  Germans  have  been 
doing  during  the  last  big  offensive,  accord- 
ing to  stories  that  boys  at  Chateau-Thierry 
have  been  telling  me.  The  kind  of  an  army 
that,  in  spite  of  wounds  and  gas,  "still  has 
singing  in  its  soul"  will  conquer  all  hell  on 
earth  before  it  gets  through. 

Then  there  is  the  memory  of  the  boys 
in  the  shell-shock  ward  at  this  same  hos- 
pital. I  had  a  long  visit  with  them.  They 
were  not  permitted  to  come  to  the  vesper 


46  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

service  for  fear  something  would  happen 
to  upset  their  nerves.  But  they  made  a 
special  request  that  I  come  to  visit  them 
in  their  ward.  After  the  service  I  went.  I 
reached  their  ward  about  nine,  and  they 
arose  to  greet  me.  The  nurse  told  me  that 
they  were  more  at  ease  on  their  feet  than 
lying  down,  and  so  for  two  hours  we  stood 
and  talked  on  our  feet. 

"How  did  you  get  yours?"  I  asked  a 
little  black-eyed  New  Yorker. 

"I  was  in  a  front-line  trench  with  my 
'outfit,'  down  near  Amiens,'*  he  said.  "We 
were  having  a  pretty  warm  scrap.  I  was 
firing  a  machine-gun  so  fast  that  it  was 
red-hot.  I  was  afraid  it  would  melt  down, 
and  I  would  be  up  against  it.  They  were 
coming  over  in  droves,  and  we  were  mow- 
ing them  down  so  fast  that  out  in  front  of 
our  company  they  looked  like  stacks  of 
hay,  the  dead  Germans  piled  up  every- 
where. I  was  so  busy  firing  my  gun,  and 
watching  it  so  carefully  because  it  was  so 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  47 

hot,  that  I  didn't  hear  the  shell  that  sud- 
denly burst  behind  me.  If  I  had  heard  it 
coming  it  would  never  have  shocked  me." 

"If  you  hear  them  coming  you're  all 
right?"  I  asked. 

"Yes.  It's  the  ones  that  surprise  you  that 
give  you  shell-shock.  If  you  hear  the  whine 
you're  ready  for  them;  but  if  your  mind 
is  on  something  else,  as  mine  was  that  day, 
and  the  thing  bursts  close,  it  either  kills 
you  or  gives  you  shell-shock,  so  it  gets  you 
both  going  and  coming."  He  laughed  at 
this. 

"I  was  all  right  for  a  while  after  the 
thing  fell,  for  I  was  unconscious  for  a  half- 
hour.  When  I  came  to  I  began  to  shake,  and 
I've  been  shaking  ever  since." 

"How  did  you  get  yours?"  I  asked  an- 
other lad,  from  Kansas,  for  I  saw  at  once 
that  it  eased  them  to  talk  about  it. 

"I  was  in  a  trench  when  a  big  Jack 
Johnson  burst  right  behind  me.  It  killed 
six  of  the  boys,  all  my  friends,  and  buried 


48  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

me  under  the  dirt  that  fell  from  the  para- 
pet back  of  me.  I  had  sense  and  strength 
enough  to  dig  myself  out.  When  I  got  out 
I  was  kind  of  dazed.  The  captain  told  me 
to  go  back  to  the  rear.  I  started  back 
through  the  communication-trench  and 
got  lost.  The  next  thing  I  knew  I  was  wan- 
dering around  in  the  darkness  shakin'  like 
a  leaf." 

Then  there  was  the  California  boy.  I 
had  known  him  before.  It  was  he  who 
almost  gave  me  a  case  of  shell-shock.  The 
last  time  I  saw  him  he  was  standing  on 
a  platform  addressing  a  crowd  of  young 
church  people  in  California.  And  there  he 
was,  his  six  foot  three  shaking  from  head 
to  foot  like  an  old  man  with  palsy,  and  stut- 
tering every  word  he  spoke.  He  had  been 
sent  to  the  hospital  at  Amiens  with  a  case 
of  acute  appendicitis.  The  first  night  he  was 
in  the  hospital  the  Germans  bombed  it 
and  destroyed  it.  They  took  him  out  and 
put  him  on  a  train  for  Paris.  This  train  had 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  49 

only  gotten  a  few  miles  out  of  Amiens 
when  the  Germans  shelled  it  and  destroyed 
two  cars. 

"After  that  I  began  to  shake,"  he  said 
simply. 

"No  wonder,  man;  who  wouldn't  shake 
after  that?"  I  said.  Then  I  asked  him  if 
he  had  had  his  operation  yet. 

"It  can't  be  done  until  I  quit  shaking." 

"When  will  you  quit?"  I  asked,  with  a 
smile. 

"Oh,  we're  all  getting  better,  much  better; 
we'll  be  out  of  here  in  a  few  months;  they 
all  get  better;  90  per  cent  of  us  get  back  in 
the  trenches." 

And  that  is  the  silver  lining  to  this  Sil- 
houette Spiritual.  The  doctors  say  that  a 
very  large  percentage  of  them  get  back. 

"We  call  ourselves  the  *  First  American 
Shock  Troops,'"  my  friend  from  the  West 
said  with  a  grin. 

"I  guess  you  are  'shock  troops/  all  right. 
I  know  one  thing,  and  that  is  that  you 


50  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

would  give  your  folks  back  home  a  good 
shock  if  they  saw  you." 

Then  we  all  laughed.  Laughter  was  in  the 
air.  I  have  never  met  anywhere  in  France 
such  a  happy,  hopeful,  cheerful  crowd  as 
that  bunch  of  shell-shocked  boys.  It  was 
contagious.  I  went  there  to  cheer  them  up, 
and  I  got  cheered  up.  I  went  there  to  give 
them  strength,  and  came  away  stronger 
than  when  I  went  in.  It  would  cheer  the 
hearts  of  all  Americans  to  take  a  peep  into 
that  room;  if  they  could  see  the  souls  back 
of  the  trembling  bodies;  if  they  could  get 
beyond  the  first  shock  of  those  trembling 
bodies  and  stuttering  tongues.  And,  after 
all,  that  is  what  America  must  learn  to  do, 
to  get  beyond,  and  to  see  beyond,  the 
wounds,  into  the  soul  of  the  boy;  to  see 
beyond  the  blinded  eyes,  the  scarred  faces, 
the  legless  and  armless  lads,  into  the  glory 
of  their  new-born  souls,  for  no  boy  goes 
through  the  hell  of  fire  and  suffering  and 
wounds  that  he  does  not  come  out  new- 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  51 

born.  The  old  man  is  gone  from  him,  and 
a  new  man  is  born  in  him.  That  is  the 
great  eternal  compensation  of  war  and 
suffering. 

I  have  seen  boys  come  out  of  battles 
made  new  men.  I  have  seen  them  go  into 
the  line  sixteen-year-old  lads,  and  come 
out  of  the  trenches  men.  I  saw  a  lad  who 
had  gone  through  the  fighting  in  Belleau 
Woods.  I  talked  with  him  in  the  hospital 
at  Paris.  His  face  was  terribly  wounded. 
He  was  ugly  to  look  at,  but  when  I  talked 
with  him  I  found  a  soul  as  white  as  a  lily 
and  as  courageous  as  granite. 

"I  may  look  awful,"  he  said,  "but  I'm 
a  new  man  inside.  What  I  saw  out  there  in 
the  woods  made  me  different,  somehow.  I 
saw  a  friend  stand  by  his  machine-gun,  with 
a  whole  platoon  of  Germans  sweeping  down 
on  him,  and  he  never  flinched.  He  fired  that 
old  gun  until  every  bullet  was  gone  and 
his  gun  was  red-hot.  I  was  lying  in  the  grass 
where  I  could  see  it  all.  I  saw  them  bayonet 


52  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

him.  He  fought  to  the  last  against  fifty 
men,  but,  thank  God,  he  died  a  man;  he 
died  an  American.  I  lay  there  and  cried  to 
see  them  kill  him,  but  every  time  I  think 
of  that  fellow  it  makes  me  want  to  be 
more  of  a  man.  When  I  get  back  home  I'm 
going  to  give  up  my  life  to  some  kind  of 
Christian  service.  I'm  going  to  do  it  be- 
cause I  saw  that  man  die  so  bravely.  If  he 
can  die  like  that,  in  spite  of  my  face  I  can 
live  like  a  man." 

The  boys  in  the  trenches  live  a  year  in 
a  month,  a  month  in  a  week,  a  week  in  a 
day,  a  day  in  an  hour,  and  sometimes  an 
eternity  in  a  second.  No  wonder  it  makes 
men  of  them  overnight.  No  wonder  they 
come  out  of  it  all  with  that  "high  look" 
that  John  Oxenham  writes  about.  They 
have  been  reborn. 

Another  wounded  boy  who  had  gone 
through  the  fighting  back  of  Montdidier 
said  to  me  in  the  hospital: 

"I  never  thought  of  anybody  else  at 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  53 

home  but  myself.  I  was  selfish.  Sis  and 
mother  did  everything  for  me.  Everything 
at  home  centred  in  me,  and  everything  was 
arranged  for  my  comfort.  With  this  leg  gone 
I  might  have  some  right  now,  according  to 
the  way  they  think,  to  that  attention,  but 
I  don't  want  it  any  longer.  I  can't  bear  the 
thoughts  of  having  people  do  for  me.  I 
want  to  spend  the  rest  of  my  life  doing 
things  for  other  folks. 

"Back  of  Noyon  I  saw  a  friend  sail  into 
a  crowd  of  six  Germans  with  nothing  but 
his  bayonet  and  rifle.  They  had  surrounded 
his  captain,  and  were  rushing  him  back  as 
a  prisoner.  They  evidently  had  orders  to 
take  the  officers  alive  as  prisoners.  That 
big  top-sergeant  sailed  into  them,  and  after 
killing  two  of  them,  knocking  two  more 
down,  and  giving  his  captain  a  chance  to 
escape,  the  last  German  shot  him  through 
the  head.  He  gave  his  life  for  the  captain. 
That  has  changed  me.  I  shall  never  be  the 
same  again  after  seeing  that  happen.  There's 


54  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

something  come  into  my  heart.  I'm  going 
back  home  a  Christian  man." 

Yes,  America  must  learn  to  see  beyond 
the  darkness,  beyond  the  disfigured  face, 
to  the  soul  of  the  boy.  And  America  will 
do  it.  America  is  like  that.  And  so  back  of 
these  shaking  bodies  and  these  stuttering 
tongues  of  the  shell-shocked  boys  I  saw 
their  wonderful  souls.  And  after  spending 
that  two  hours  with  them  I  can  never  be 
the  same  man  again. 

I  could,  as  Donald  Hankey  says,  "get 
down  on  my  knees  and  shine  their  boots 
for  them  any  day,"  and  thank  God  for  the 
privilege.  I  think  that  this  is  the  spirit  of 
any  non-combatant  in  France  who  has  any 
immediate  contact  with  our  men  on  the 
battle-front  or  in  the  hospitals.  They  are 
so  brave  and  so  true. 

"How  do  the  Americans  stand  dressing 
their  wounds  and  the  suffering  in  the  hos- 
pitals ?  "  a  friend  of  mine  asked  a  prominent 
surgeon. 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  55 

"They  bear  their  suffering  like  French- 
men. That  is  the  highest  compliment  I  can 
pay  them,'*  he  replied. 

And  so  back  of  their  wounds  are  their 
immortal,  undying,  unflinching  souls.  And 
back  of  the  tremblings  of  these  boys  that 
night,  thank  God,  I  had  the  glory  of  seeing 
their  immortal  souls,  and  to  me  the  soul 
of  an  American  boy  under  fire  and  pain  is 
the  biggest,  finest,  most  tremendous  thing 
on  earth.  I  bow  before  it  in  humility.  It 
dazzled  mine  eyes.  All  I  could  think  of  as 
I  saw  it  was: 

"Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of 
the  Lord." 

That  night  I  said,  just  before  I  left: 
"Boys,  it's  Sunday  evening,  and  they 
wouldn't  let  you  come  to  my  meeting ! 
Would  you  like  for  me  to  have  a  little 
prayer  with  you  ?  " 

"Yes !  Sure  !  That's  just  what  we  want !" 
were  the  stammered  words  that  followed. 


56  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

"All  right;  we'll  just  stand,  if  it's  easier 
for  you." 

Then  I  prayed  the  prayer  that  had  been 
burning  in  my  heart  every  minute  as  we 
stood  there  in  that  dimly  lit  ward,  talking 
of  home  and  battle  and  the  folks  we  all 
loved  across  the  seas.  All  that  time  there 
had  been  hovering  in  the  background  of 
my  mind  a  picture  of  a  cool  body  of  water 
named  Galilee,  and  of  a  Christ  who  had 
been  sleeping  in  a  boat  on  that  water 
with  some  of  his  friends,  when  a  storm 
came  up.  I  had  been  thinking  of  how 
frightened  those  friends  had  been  of  the 
storm;  of  the  tossing,  tumbling,  turbulent 
waves.  I  had  thought  of  how  they  had  trem- 
bled with  fear,  and  then  of  how  they  had 
appealed  to  the  Master.  I  told  the  boys 
simply  that  story,  and  then  I  prayed: 

"O  Thou  Christ  who  stilled  the  waves 
of  Galilee,  come  Thou  into  the  hearts 
of  these  boys  just  now,  and  still  their 
trembling  limbs  and  tongues.  Bring  a 


SILHOUETTES  SPIRITUAL  57 

great  sense  of  peace  and  quiet  into  their 
souls." 

"Oh,  ye  of  little  faith !"  When  I  looked 
up  from  that  prayer,  much  to  my  own 
astonishment,  and  to  the  astonishment  of 
the  friend  who  was  with  me,  the  tremblings 
of  those  fine  American  boys  had  perceptibly 
ceased.  There  was  a  great  sense  of  quiet  and 
peace  in  the  ward. 

The  nurse  told  me  the  next  day  that 
after  I  had  gone  the  boys  went  quietly  to 
bed;  that  there  was  little  tossing  that  night 
and  no  walking  the  floors,  as  there  had  been 
before.  A  doctor  friend  said  to  me:  "After 
all,  maybe  your  medicine  is  best,  for  while 
we  are  more  or  less  groping  in  the  dark  as 
to  our  treatment  of  shell-shock,  we  do  know 
that  the  only  cure  will  be  that  something 
comes  into  their  souls  to  give  them  quiet 
of  mind  and  peace  within." 

"I  know  what  that  medicine  is,"  I  told 
him.  "I  have  seen  it  work." 

"What  is  it?  "he  asked. 


58  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

Then  I  told  him  of  my  experience. 

"You  may  be  right." 

And  so  it  is  all  over  France;  where  I  have 
worked  in  some  twenty  hospitals — from  the 
first-aid  dressing-stations  back  through  the 
evacuation  hospitals  to  the  base  hospitals 
— and  have  found  that  the  reaction  of  our 
boys  to  wounds  and  suffering  is  always  a 
spiritual  reaction.  I  know  as  I  know  no 
other  thing,  that  the  boys  of  America  are 
to  come  back,  wounded  or  otherwise,  a 
better  crowd  of  men  than  they  went  away. 
They  are  men  reborn,  and  when  they  come 
back,  when  it's  "over,  over  there,"  there  is 
to  be  a  nation  reborn  because  of  the  leaven 
that  is  within  their  souls. 


V 

SILHOUETTES     OF     SACRILEGE 

TAURING  the  last  year  there  has  come 
*~*  into  French  art^a  new  era  of  the  sil- 
houette. In  every  art  store  in  Paris  one  sees 
wonderful  silhouettes  which  tell  the  story 
of  the  horror  of  the  Hun  better  than  any 
words  can  paint  it,  and  when  one  attempts 
to  paint  it  he  must  attempt  it  in  word 
silhouettes. 

The  silhouette  catches  the  picture  better 
than  color.  Gaunt,  naked,  ruined  cathe- 
drals, homes,  towers,  and  forests  are  better 
pictured  in  black  silhouettes  than  any  other 
way.  There  is  nothing  much  left  in  some 
places  in  France  but  silhouettes. 

Those  who  have  seen  Rheims  know  that 
the  best  reproduction  of  its  ruins  has  been 
conveyed  by  the  simple  silhouette  of  the 
artist.  There  it  stands  outlined  against  the 
sky.  Rheims  that  was  once  the  wonder  of 
the  world  is  now  naked  ruins,  tottering 

59 


60  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

walls,  with  its  towers  still  standing,  loom- 
ing against  the  sky  like  tottering  trees. 
And  when,  during  the  past  year,  the  walls 
fell,  they 

"Left  a  lonesome  place  against  the  sky" 

of  all  the  world. 

The  church  at  Albert  was  like  that.  Only 
a  silhouette  can  describe  or  picture  it. 
There  it  stood  against  the  sky  by  day  and 
night,  with  the  figure  on  its  top  leaning. 
The  old  legend  of  the  soldiers  that  when 
the  figure  of  the  Virgin  fell  to  the  earth  the 
war  would  end  has  been  dissipated,  for 
during  the  last  drive  that  figure  fell,  and 
the  tower  with  it.  But  forever  (although  it 
has  fallen  to  dust  and  debris,  because  of 
descriptions  we  have  seen  of  it)  it  shall 
stand  out  in  our  memories  like  a  lonely, 
toppling  tree  against  a  crimson  sunset ! 

Every  day  on  the  Toul  line  we  used  to 
drive  through  a  village  that  had  been 
shelled  until  it  was  in  ruins.  Only  the  tower 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRILEGE         61 

and  the  walls  of  a  beautiful  little  church  re- 
mained. Every  other  house  in  the  village  was 
razed  to  the  ground.  Nothing  else  remained. 
There  it  stands  to  this  day,  for  when 
I  saw  it  last  in  June  it  was  still  stand- 
ing as  it  was  in  January.  Every  evening 
about  sunset  we  used  to  drive  down  that 
way,  taking  supplies  to  the  front-line  huts. 
Many  things  stand  out  in  one's  memory 
of  a  certain  road  over  which  he  drives  night 
after  night  and  day  after  day.  There  is  the 
cross  at  the  forks  of  the  roads.  There  is 
the  old  monastery,  battered  and  in  ruins, 
that  stood  out  like  a  gaunt  ghost  of  the 
vandal  Hun.  There  was  the  little  God's 
acre  along  the  road  which  we  passed  every 
day.  There  were  always  the  observation- 
balloons  against  the  evening  sky.  There 
were  always  the  fleet-winged  birds  of  the 
air  outlined  against  the  evening.  There  were 
always  the  marching  men  and  the  ambu- 
lance trains.  But  standing  out  above  them 
all,  etched  with  the  acid  of  regret  and  an- 


62  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

ger  and  horror,  stood  that  lonely  tower. 
Night  after  night  we  approached  it  with 
a  beautiful  sunset  off  to  the  west  where 
the  Germans  lay  buried  in  their  trenches. 
Coming  back  from  the  German  lines  we 
would  see  this  church-tower  outlined  against 
the  crimson  sky  like  a  finger  pointing  God- 
ward,  and  declaring  to  all  the  world  that 
the  God  above  would  avenge  this  silent,  ac- 
cusing Silhouette  of  Sacrilege. 

There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  discussion 
over  a  certain  book  entitled  "I  Accuse." 
I  never  saw  that  finger  pointing  into  the 
sky  as  we  drove  through  this  village  that 
it  did  not  cry  out  to  the  heavens  and  across 
the  short  miles  to  the  German  Huns,  looking 
down,  as  it  did,  at  its  feet  where  the  ruined 
homes  lay,  the  village  that  it  had  mothered 
and  fathered,  the  village  that  had  wor- 
shipped within  its  simple  walls,  the  village 
that  had  brought  its  joys  and  sorrows  there, 
the  village  that  had  buried  the  dead  within 
its  shadows,  the  village  that  had  brought 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRILEGE         63 

its  young  there  to  be  married  and  its  aged 
to  be  buried;  there  it  stood,  night  after 
night,  against  the  crimson  sky  sometimes, 
against  the  golden  sky  at  other  times; 
against  the  rose,  against  the  blue,  against 
the  purple  sunsets;  and  ever  it  thundered: 
"I  accuse !  I  accuse !  I  accuse !" 

Then  there  is  that  Silhouette  of  Sac- 
rilege up  on  the  Baupaume  Road.  This  is 
called  "the  saddest  road  in  Christendom," 
because  more  men  have  been  killed  along 
its  scarred  pathway  than  along  any  other 
road  in  all  the  world.  Not  even  the  road  to 
Calvary  was  as  sad  as  this  road. 

Along  this  road  when  the  French  held 
it,  during  the  first  year  of  the  war,  they 
gathered  their  dead  together  and  buried 
them  in  a  little  cemetery.  Above  the  sacred 
remains  of  their  comrades  these  French 
soldiers  erected  a  simple  bronze  cross  as  a 
symbol  not  only  of  the  faith  of  the  nation, 
but  a  symbol  also  of  the  cause  in  which 
they  had  died. 


64  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

A  few  months  later  when  the  Germans 
had  recaptured  this  spot,  and  it  had  been 
fought  over,  and  the  bronze  cross  still 
stood,  the  Hun,  too,  gathered  his  dead 
together  and  buried  them  side  by  side  with 
the  French.  Then  he  did  a  characteristic 
thing.  He  got  a  large  stone  as  a  base  and 
mounted  a  cannon-ball  on  top  of  this  stone, 
and  left  it  there,  side  by  side  with  the 
French  cross. 

Whether  he  meant  it  or  not,  his  sacrilege 
stands  as  a  fitting  expression  of  his  philos- 
ophy, the  philosophy  of  the  brute,  the  re- 
ligion of  the  granite  rock  and  the  iron  can- 
non-ball. 

He  told  his  own  story  here.  Side  by  side 
in  those  two  monuments  the  contrast  is 
made,  the  causes  are  placed.  One  is  the 
cause  of  the  cross,  the  cause  of  men  willing 
to  die  for  brotherhood;  the  other  is  the 
cause  of  those  who  are  willing  to  kill  to 
conquer. 

And  these  two  monuments,  side  by  side 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRILEGE         65 

on  the  Baupaume  Road,  stand  out  as  one 
of  the  Silhouettes  of  Sacrilege. 

Then  there  is  St.  Gervais.  On  Good 
Friday  afternoon  a  Hun  shell  pierced  the 
side  of  this  beautiful  cathedral  as  the  spear- 
thrust  pierced  the  side  of  the  Master  so 
long  ago.  On  the  very  hour  that  Jesus  was 
crucified  back  on  that  other  and  first  Good 
Friday  the  Hun  threw  his  bolt  of  death 
into  the  nave  of  this  church,  and  crucified 
seventy-five  people  kneeling  in  memory  of 
their  Saviour's  death. 

I  was  in  that  church  an  hour  after  this 
terrible  sacrilege  happened.  Never  can  one 
forget  the  scene.  I  dare  not  describe  it 
here  in  its  awful  details. 

The  entire  arches  of  stone  that  held  up 
the  roof  had  fallen  in  from  the  concussion 
of  the  gases  of  the  shell.  Three  feet  of  solid 
stones  covered  the  floor.  Men  and  women 
were  being  carried  out.  Silk  hats,  canes, 
shoes,  hats,  baby  clothes,  an  expensive  fur, 
lay  buried  in  the  stone  and  dirt. 


66  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

As  I  stood  horrified,  looking  on  this  scene 
of  death  and  destruction,  the  phrase  came 
into  my  heart: 

"And  the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain." 

And  this  scene,  too,  shall  remain  as  one 
of  the  Silhouettes  of  Sacrilege. 

But  perhaps  the  worst  Silhouette  of  Sac- 
rilege that  the  film  of  one's  memory  has 
brought  away  from  France  is  that  of  a 
certain  afternoon  in  Paris. 

I  happened  to  be  walking  along  the  Bou- 
levard to  my  hotel.  The  big  gun  had  been 
throwing  its  shells  into  the  city  all  day. 
Suddenly  one  fell  so  close  to  where  I  was 
walking  that  it  broke  the  windows  around 
me,  and  I  was  nearly  thrown  to  my  feet. 
In  my  soul  I  cursed  the  Hun,  as  all  who 
have  lived  in  Paris  finally  come  to  be  doing 
as  each  shell  bursts.  But  I  had  more  reason 
to  curse  than  I  knew  at  that  moment. 

The  people  were  running  into  a  side 
street,  the  next  one  toward  which  I  was 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SACRILEGE         67 

approaching.  I  followed  the  crowd.  My 
uniform  got  me  past  the  gendarmes  in 
through  a  little  court,  up  a  pair  of  stairs 
where  the  shell  had  penetrated  the  walls 
of  a  maternity  hospital. 

What  I  saw  there  in  that  room  shall 
make  me  hate  the  Hun  forever. 

New-born  babes  had  been  killed,  a  nurse 
and  two  mothers.  When  I  thought  of  the 
expectant  homes  into  which  those  babes 
had  come,  when  I  thought  of  the  fathers 
at  the  front  who  would  never  see  again 
either  their  wives  or  those  new  babies, 
when  I  saw  the  blood  that  smeared  the 
plaster  and  floors  of  that  room,  when  I 
saw  the  little  twisted  baby  beds,  a  flush  of 
hatred  swept  over  me,  as  it  did  over  all 
who  saw  it,  a  new  birth  of  hatred  that 
could  never  die  until  those  little  babies  and 
those  mothers  and  the  nurse  are  avenged. 
That  is  a  Silhouette  of  Sacrilege  that  makes 
the  gamut  complete. 

There  was  the  desecration  of  the  holy 


68  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

sanctuaries;  there  was  the  desecration  of  the 
graves  of  brave  soldiers  of  France;  there 
was  the  derision  of  his  bronze  cross;  there 
was  the  desecration  of  the  most  sacred  day 
in  Christendom,  Good  Friday,  and  then 
the  desecration  of  little  children,  mothers 
of  new-born  babes,  and  nurses.  Could  the 
case  be  more  complete?  Could  Silhouettes 
of  Sacrilege  cover  a  wider  gamut  of  hatred 
and  disgust  than  these  silhouettes  picture  ? 


VI 

SILHOUETTES    OF    SILENCE 


fT^WO  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  the  sea 
•*•  is  sometimes  cold  and  disagreeable, 
and  sometimes  it  is  glorious  with  wonder 
and  beauty.  But  whether  it  is  beautiful  or 
whether  it  is  cold  and  disagreeable,  at  that 
exact  hour  in  the  war  zone  on  every  Ameri- 
can transport,  now,  every  boy  is  summoned 
on  deck  until  daylight.  This  is  only  one  of 
the  many  precautions  that  the  navy  is 
taking  to  save  life  in  case  of  a  U-boat 
attack.  One  thing  that  ought  to  comfort 
every  mother  and  father  in  America  is  the 
care  that  is  manifested  and  the  precautions 
that  are  taken  by  the  navy  in  getting  the 
soldiers  to  France.  One  of  the  most  thrill- 
ing chapters  of  the  history  of  this  war,  when 
it  is  written,  will  be  that  chapter.  And  one 
of  the  most  wonderful,  the  most  colossal 
feats  will  be  the  safe  transportation  over- 

69 


70  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

seas  of  those  millions  of  soldiers  with  so 
little  loss  of  life  while  doing  it. 

And  one  of  the  best  precautions  is  this 
of  getting  every  boy  up  out  of  the  hold 
and  out  of  the  staterooms,  officers  and  all, 
on  deck,  standing  by  the  assigned  life-boats 
and  rafts.  Not  a  single  boy  remains  below 
in  the  war  zone. 

Day  is  just  breaking  across  the  sea.  It  is 
a  beautiful  dawning.  Five  thousand  Ameri- 
can boys  line  the  railings  of  a  certain  great 
transport.  They  are  not  allowed  to  smoke. 
They  do  not  sing.  They  do  not  talk  much. 
Some  of  them  are  sleepy,  for  the  average 
American  boy  is  not  used  to  being  awakened 
at  two  in  the  morning.  They  just  stand  and 
wait  and  watch  through  five  hours  of  silence 
as  the  great  ship  plunges  its  way  defiantly 
through  the  danger  zone,  saying  in  so 
many  words:  "We're  ready  for  you !" 

And  the  silhouette  of  that  great  ship, 
lined  with  khaki-clad  American  boys,  wait- 
ing, watching,  as  seen  from  another  trans- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  71 

port,  where  the  watcher  who  writes  this 
story  stands,  is  a  sight  never  to  be  equalled 
in  art  or  story.  To  see  the  huge  bulk  of  a 
great  transport  just  a  stone's  throw  away, 
moving  forward,  without  a  sound  from  its 
rail-lined,  soldier-packed  deck,  is  one  of  the 
striking  Silhouettes  of  Silence. 

Thomas  Carlyle  once  said  of  man: 
"Stands  he  not  thereby  in  the  centre  of 
Immensities,  in  the  conflux  of  Eternities?" 
One  day  I  saw  the  American  army  stand- 
ing "in  the  centre  of  immensities,  in  the 
conflux  of  eternities,"  at  the  focus  of  his- 
tories. One  day  I  saw  the  American  army 
in  France  march  in  answer  to  General  Persh- 
ing's  offer  to  the  Allies  at  the  beginning  of 
the  big  drive,  march  to  its  place  in  history 
beside  its  Allies,  the  English  and  the  French. 

The  news  came.  The  first  division  of 
American  troops  was  to  leave  overnight 
and  march  overland  into  the  Marne  line. 
Our  Allies  needed  us.  They  had  called.  We 
were  answering. 


72  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

As  a  tribute  to  the  efficiency  of  the 
American  army,  may  I  say  that  the  one 
well-trained,  seasoned  division  of  troops 
that  we  had  in  a  certain  quiet  sector  picked 
up  bag  and  baggage  overnight  and,  like 
the  Arabs,  "silently  stole  away,"  and  did 
it  so  well  and  so  efficiently  that  not  even 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretaries,  who  had  been 
living  with  this  division  intimately  for 
months,  knew  that  they  were  gone,  and  that 
a  new  division  had  taken  its  place,  until 
the  next  morning.  Talk  about  German 
efficiency  —  that  phrase,  "German  effi- 
ciency," has  become  a  bugaboo  to  frighten 
the  world.  American  efficiency  is  just  as 
great,  if  not  greater. 

I  saw  that  division  marching  overland. 
It  was  a  thrilling  sight.  Coming  on  it  sud- 
denly, and  looking  down  upon  its  march- 
ing columns  from  the  brow  of  a  hill,  and 
then  riding  past  it  in  a  Ford  camionet  all 
day  long  with  Irving  Cobb,  riding  past  its 
ammunition-wagons,  past  its  machine-gun 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  73 

battalion,  past  its  great  artillery  com- 
pany, past  its  hundreds  of  infantrymen, 
past  its  trucks,  past  its  clean-cut  officers 
astride  their  horses,  past  its  supply-trains, 
past  its  flags  and  banners,  past  its  kitchen- 
wagons,  seeing  it  stop  to  eat,  seeing  it 
shoulder  its  rifles,  seeing  its  ambulances 
and  its  Red  Cross  groups,  seeing  its  khaki- 
clad  American  boys  wind  through  the  val- 
leys and  up  the  hills  and  over  the  bridges 
(the  white  stone  bridge),  through  its  vil- 
lages, many  in  which  American  soldiers 
had  never  been  seen  before;  welcomed  by 
the  people  as  the  saviors  of  France,  seeing 
its  way  strewn  with  the  flowers  of  spring 
by  little  children,  and  with  the  welcome 
and  the  tears  of  French  mothers  and  daugh- 
ters clad  in  black,  seeing  it  march  along  the 
French  streams  from  early  morning  until 
late  at  night,  this  was  a  sight  to  stir  the 
pride  of  any  American  to  the  point  of  rev- 
erence. 

But  all  day  as  we  rode  along  that  wind- 


74  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

ing  trail  I  thought  of  the  song  that  the 
soldiers  are  singing,  "There's  a  Long,  Long 
Trail  Awinding  to  the  Land  of  Our  Dreams," 
and  when  I  looked  into  the  faces  of  those 
American  boys  I  saw  there  the  determina- 
tion that  the  trail  that  they  were  taking 
was  a  trail  that,  although  it  was  leading 
physically  directly  away  from  home,  and 
toward  Berlin,  yet  it  was,  to  their  way  of 
thinking,  the  shortest  way  home.  The  trail 
that  the  American  army  took  that  day  as 
it  marched  into  the  Marne  line  was  the 
"home  trail,"  and  every  boy  marched  that 
road  with  the  determination  that  the  sooner 
they  got  that  hard  job  ahead  over  with, 
the  sooner  they  would  get  home.  I  talked 
with  many  of  them  as  they  stopped  to 
rest  and  found  this  sentiment  on  every  lip. 
•  But  it  was  a  silent  army.  I  heard  no  sing- 
ing all  day  long  —  not  a  song.  Men  may 
sing  as  they  are  marching  into  training- 
camps;  they  may  sing  when  they  board 
the  boats  for  France  now;  they  may  sing 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  75 

as  they  march  into  rest-billets,  but  they 
were  not  singing  that  day  as  they  marched 
into  the  great  battle-line  of  Europe. 

I  heard  no  laughter.  I  heard  no  loud 
talking,  I  heard  no  singing;  I  heard  only 
the  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  of  marching  feet, 
and  the  crunching  of  the  great  motor-trucks, 
and  the  patter  of  horses  as  the  officers 
galloped  along  their  lines.  That  army  of 
American  men  knew  that  the  job  on  which 
they  were  entering  was  not  child's  play. 
They  knew  that  democracy  depended  upon 
what  they  did  in  that  line.  They  knew  that 
many  of  them  would  never  come  back. 
They  knew  that  at  last  the  real  thing  was 
facing  them.  They  were  not  like  dumb, 
driven  beasts.  They  were  men.  They  were 
American  men.  They  were  thinking  men. 
They  were  silent  men.  They  were  brave 
men. 

They  were  marching  to  their  place  in 
history  unafraid,  and  unflinching,  but 
thoughtful  and  silent. 


76  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

Another  Silhouette  of  Silence.  It  was  after 
midnight  on  the  Toul  line.  We  were  driving 
back  from  the  front.  The  earth  was  covered 
with  a  blanket  of  snow.  Everything  was 
white.  We  were  moving  cautiously  because 
with  the  snow  over  everything  it  was  hard 
to  tell  where  the  icy  road  left  off  and  the 
ditches  began;  and  those  ditches  were  four 
feet  deep,  and  a  big  truck  is  hard  to  get 
out  of  a  hole.  Then  there  were  no  lights, 
for  we  were  too  near  the  Boche  bat- 
teries. 

"Halt!"  rang  out  suddenly  in  the  night, 
and  a  sentry  stepped  into  the  middle  of 
the  road. 

I  got  down  to  see  what  he  wanted. 

"There  are  fifty  truck-loads  of  soldiers 
going  into  the  trenches  to-night,  and  they 
are  coming  this  way.  Drive  carefully,  for 
it  is  slippery."  , 

In  a  few  moments  we  came  to  the  first 
truck  filled  with  soldiers,  and  passed  it.  A 
hundred  yards  farther  we  came  to  the 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  77 

second  one,  loaded  down  with  American 
boys.  Their  rifles  were  stacked  in  the  front 
of  the  truck,  and  their  helmets  made  a 
solid  steel  covering  over  the  trucks.  One 
by  one,  fifty  trucks  loaded  with  American 
soldiers  passed  us.  One  can  hardly  imagine 
that  many  American  boys  anywhere  with- 
out some  noise,  but  the  impressive  thing 
about  that  scene  was  that  not  a  single 
word,  not  a  sound  of  a  human  voice,  came 
from  a  single  one  of  those  fifty  trucks. 
The  only  sound  to  be  heard  breaking  the 
silence  of  the  night  was  the  crunching  of 
the  chained  wheels  of  the  heavy  trucks  in 
the  snow.  We  watched  that  strangely  silent 
procession  go  up  over  a  snow-covered  hill 
and  disappear.  Not  a  single  sound  of  a 
human  voice  had  broken  the  silence. 

Another  Silhouette  of  Silence:  It  is  an 
operating-room  in  an  evacuation  hospital. 
The  boy  was  brought  in  last  night.  An 
operation  was  immediately  imperative.  I 
had  known  the  boy,  and  was  there  by 


78  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

r 

courtesy  of  the  major  in  charge  of  the  hos- 
pital. The  boy  had  asked  that  I  come. 
;  For  just  one  hour  they  worked,  two 
skilled  American  surgeons,  whose  names, 
if  I  were  to  mention  them,  would  be  recog- 
nized as  two  of  America's  greatest  special- 
ists. France  has  many  of  them  who  have 
given  up  their  ten-thousand-dollar  fees  to 
endure  danger  to  save  our  boys.  During 
that  hour's  stress  and  strain,  with  sweat 
pouring  from  their  brows,  they  worked. 
Now  and  then  there  was  a  nod  to  a  nurse, 
who  seemed  to  understand  without  words, 
and  a  motion  of  a  hand,  but  not  three  words 
were  spoken.  It  made  a  Silhouette  of  Si- 
lence that  saved  a  boy's  life. 

The  next  scene  is  a  listening-post.  Two 
men  are  stretched  on  their  stomachs  in  the 
brown  grass.  A  little  hole,  just  enough  to 
conceal  their  bodies,  has  been  dug  there. 
The  upturned  roots  of  an  old  tree  that  a 
bursting  shell  had  desecrated  was  just  in 
front.  "Tap  !  Tap !  Tap !"  came  the  sounds 


The  upturned  roots  of  an  old  tree  were  just  in  front. 


SILHOUETTES  OP  SILENCE  79 

of  Boches  at  work  somewhere  near  and 
underground.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  this 
was  a  Silhouette  of  Silence,  and  that  a  cer- 
tain Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretary  was  glad  when 
it  was  all  over  and  he  got  back  where  he 
belonged. 

The  beautiful  columns  of  the  Madeleine 
bask  under  the  moonlight.  Paris  was  never 
so  quiet.  The  silence  of  eternity  seemed  to 
have  settled  down  over  her.  As  one  looked 
at  the  Madeleine  under  that  magical  white 
moonlight  he  imagined  that  he  had  been 
transported  back  to  Athens,  and  that  he 
was  no  longer  living  in  modern  times  and 
in  a  world  at  war.  It  was  all  so  quiet  and 
peaceful,  with  a  great  moon  floating  in  the 


But  what  is  that  awful  wail  that  sud- 
denly smites  the  stillness  as  with  a  blow? 
It  seems  like  the  wailing  of  all  the  lost  souls 
of  the  war.  It  sounds  like  the  crying  of 
the  more  than  five  million  sorrowing  women 


80  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

there  are  left  comfortless  in  Europe.  It  is 
the  siren.  An  air-raid  is  on.  The  "alert"  is 
sounding.  The  bombs  begin  to  fall.  The 
Boches  have  gotten  over  even  before  the 
barrage  is  up.  Hell  breaks  loose  for  an  hour. 
No  battle  on  the  front  ever  heard  more 
terrific  cannonading  than  the  next  hour. 
The  barrage  was  the  heaviest  ever  sent  up 
over  Paris.  The  six  Gothas  that  got  over  the 
city  dropped  twenty-four  bombs. 

The  terrific  bombardment,  however,  now 
as  one  looks  back,  only  serves  to  make  the 
preceding  silence  stand  out  more  emphati- 
cally, and  the  Madeleine,  basking  in  the 
moonlight  the  hour  before,  more  beautiful 
in  its  silhouette  of  grace  and  bulk  against 
the  golden  light. 

A  month  on  the  front  lines  with  thunder 
beating  always,  a  month  of  machine-gun 
racket,  a  month  of  bombing  by  Gothas  every 
night,  a  month  of  crunching  wheels,  a  month 
of  pounding  motors  and  rumbling  trucks,  a 
month  of  marching  men,  a  month  of  the 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  81 

pounding  of  horses'  hoofs  on  the  hard  roads 
of  France,  a  month  of  sirens  and  clanging 
church-bells  in  the  tocsin,  and  then  a  day 
in  the  valley  of  vision,  down  at  Domremy 
where  Jeanne  d'Arc  was  born,  was  a  contrast 
that  gave  a  Silhouette  of  Silence  to  me. 

One  day  on  the  Toul  line,  a  train  by 
night,  and  the  next  morning  so  far  away 
that  all  you  could  hear  was  the  singing  of 
birds.  Peasants  quietly  tended  their  flocks. 
Children  played  in  the  roads.  The  valley  was 
beautiful  under  the  sunh'ght  of  as  warm  and 
as  beautiful  a  spring  day  as  ever  fell  over  the 
fields  of  France.  I  stood  on  the  very  spot 
where  the  peasant  girl  of  Orleans  caught  her 
vision.  I  looked  down  over  the  valley  with 
"the  green  stream  streaking  through  it," 
with  silence  brooding  over  it,  a  bewilder- 
ing contrast  with  the  day  and  the  month 
that  had  just  preceded;  and  it  all  stands 
out  as  one  of  the  Silhouettes  of  Silence. 

Another  day,  another  hour,  another  part 


82  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

of  France.  They  call  it  "Calvaire."  It  covers 
several  acres.  The  peasants  go  there  to 
worship  in  pilgrimage  every  year.  There  is 
a  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  with  marvellous 
statues  built  life-size.  Then  through  the 
woods  there  is  a  worn  pathway  to  the 
Sanhedrin.  This  is  of  marble.  Jesus  is  here 
before  his  accusers  in  marble  statuary. 

As  his  accusers  question  him  and  he 
answers  them  not,  they  wonder.  But  those 
who  have  seen  "Calvaire"  in  France  do 
not  wonder,  for  from  that  room  there  is 
a  clean  swath  of  trees  cut,  and  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  away  looms,  on  a  hill,  a  real 
Calvary,  with  the  tree  crosses  silhouetted 
against  the  sky,  and  Jesus  is  seeing  down 
the  pathway  the  hill  of  the  cross. 

Then  there  is  "The  Way  of  the  Cross," 
built  by  peasant  hands.  It  is  a  road  covered 
with  flintstones  as  sharp  as  knives.  This 
flint  road  must  be  a  mile  long,  and  it  winds 
here  and  there  leading  to  Calvary,  and 
along  its  way  are  the  various  stations  of 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  83 

the  cross  in  life-size  figures.  Jesus  is  seen 
at  every  step  of  this  agony  bearing  his 
cross  until  relieved  by  Simon.  Over  this 
flintstone  every  year  the  people  come  by 
thousands,  and  crawl  on  their  naked  knees 
or  walk  on  their  naked  feet.  Every  stone  is 
stained  with  blood;  stumbling,  cruelly  hurt, 
bleeding,  they  go  "  The  Way  of  the  Cross," 
and  I  have  no  doubt  but  that  they  go 
back  to  their  homes  better  men  and 
women  for  having  done  so. 

The  day  that  we  went  to  "Calvaire"  it 
was  a  fitful  June  afternoon.  As  we  walked 
along  "The  Way  of  the  Cross,"  across  the 
field,  past  the  living,  almost  breathing, 
statues  of  the  Master  bearing  his  cruel 
cross,  past  the  sneering  figures  of  those 
who  hated  him,  and  past  the  weeping 
figures  of  those  who  loved  and  would  aid 
him,  and  as  we  came  to  the  hill  itself,  sud- 
denly black  clouds  gathered  behind  it  and 
rain  began  to  pour. 

"I  am  glad  the  clouds  are  there  back  of 


84  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

Calvary.  I  am  glad  it  is  raining  as  we 
climb  the  hill  of  Calvary.  I  am  willing  to  be 
soaked.  It  seems  more  fitting  so,  with  the 
black  clouds  there  and  all.  It  reminds  me 
of  'The  Return  from  Calvary'  in  the  paint- 
ing," one  of  the  party  said  impressively. 

Up  the  winding  hill  we  climbed,  and 
there  gaunt  and  cruel  against  a  sombre 
sky  stood  the  three  crosses,  just  as  we 
have  always  imagined  them.  The  hill  was 
so  high  that  it  overlooked  as  beautiful  a 
valley  as  I  had  seen  in  all  France.  It  was 
in  Brittany,  as  yet  untouched  by  the  war 
as  far  as  its  fields  are  concerned  (not  so  its 
men  and  its  women  and  its  homes) ;  but  on 
that  spring  day  as  we  looked  down  from 
the  hill  of  Calvary  we  could  see  off  in  the 
distance  the  tomb,  with  the  stone  rolled 
away,  and  life-size  angels  standing  there 
with  uplifted  wings.  Then  farther  along 
the  road,  perhaps  another  quarter  mile 
away,  on  another  hill,  were  the  figures  of 
the  disciples,  and  the  women  watching  the 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SILENCE  85 

ascension  with  rapt  faces,  and  a  glory  shone 
round  about  them  all. 

And  as  we  stood  there  on  that  Calvary, 
built  in  memory  of  the  crucifixion  and 
resurrection  and  ascension  of  their  Master 
by  the  peasants,  and  looked  down  over  the 
earth,  bright  with  crimson  poppies  every- 
where in  field  and  hill,  brilliant  with  the 
old-gold  blossom  of  the  broom  flower,  as 
we  stood  there,  our  hearts  subdued  to  awe 
and  wonder,  looking  down,  suddenly  the 
rain  ceased  and  the  sun  shone  in  its  full 
glory  and  lighted  anew  the  white  marble 
of  the  figures  of  the  ascension  far  below 
us  in  the  field. 

As  we  stood  there  the  thought  came  to  me: 
"So  is  the  Christian  world  standing  to- 
day on  the  hill  of  'Calvaire.'  The  storms 
have  been  black  about  the  Christian  world. 
The  clouds  have  seemed  impenetrable. 
The  earth  has  been  desolate.  We  have 
walked  on  our  hands  and  knees  and  in  our 
bare  feet  up  the  flinty  road  of  Baupaume, 


86  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

cthe  saddest  road  in  Christendom,'  and 
along  this  road  we  have  borne  the  cross. 
We,  the  Christian  world,  the  mothers,  the 
fathers,  the  little  children,  have  bled.  We 
have  stumbled  and  fallen  along  the  way. 
And  when  we  climbed  the  hill  of  Calvary, 
as  we  have  been  doing  for  these  years  of 
war,  the  clouds  darkened  and  we  saw  only 
the  ominous  silhouettes  of  the  three  crosses. 

"But  the  sun  is  now  breaking  the  clouds, 
and  it  shall  burn  its  way  to  a  glorious  day. 
Across  the  fields  we  see  the  open  tomb  and 
the  resurrection  is  about  to  dawn;  the  day 
of  brotherhood,  democracy,  justice,  love, 
and  peace  forever. 

"Hope  is  in  the  world,  hope  brooding, 
hope  dominant,  hope  triumphant,  hope  in 
its  supreme  ascension." 

One  could  not  see  this  Silhouette  of  Si- 
lence, this  "Calvaire"  of  the  French  na- 
tion, and  not  come  away  knowing  the  full 
meaning  of  the  war.  It  is  "The  New  Cal- 
vary" of  the  world. 


VII 

SILHOUETTES    OF    SERVICE 

A  NEWSPAPER  paragraph  in  a  Paris 
••  ^-  paper  said:  "Dale  was  last  seen  in  a 
village  just  before  the  Germans  entered 
it,  gathering  together  a  crowd  of  little 
French  children,  trying  to  get  them  to  a 
place  of  safety." 

Dale  has  never  been  seen  since,  and  that 
was  two  months  ago.  Whether  he  is  dead 
or  alive  we  do  not  know,  but  those  who 
knew  this  manly  American  lad  best,  say 
unanimously:  "That  was  just  like  Dale;  he 
loved  kids,  and  he  was  always  talking 
about  his  own  and  showing  us  their  pic- 
tures." 

No  monument  will  ever  be  erected  to 
Dale,  for  he  was  just  a  common  soldier; 
but  I  for  one  would  rather  have  had  the 
monument  of  that  simple  paragraph  in  the 
press  despatches;  I  for  one  would  rather 

87 


88  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

have  it  said  of  me,  "The  last  seen  of  Dale 
he  was  gathering  together  a  crowd  of  little 
children  " ;  I  would  rather  have  died  in  such 
a  service  than  to  have  lived  to  be  a  part 
of  the  marching  army  that  is  one  day  to 
enter  the  streets  of  Berlin.  That  was  a 
man's  way  to  die;  dying  while  trying  to 
save  a  crowd  of  little  children  from  the 
cowardly  Hun. 

If  I  had  died  in  that  kind  of  service,  in 
my  dying  moments  I  could  have  heard  the 
words  of  John  Masefield  from  "The  Ever- 
lasting Mercy"  singing  in  my  heart: 

"Whoever  gives  a  child  a  treat 
Makes  joybells  ring  in  Heaven's  street; 
Whoever  gives  a  child  a  home, 
Builds  palaces  in  Kingdom  Come; 
Whoever  brings  a  child  to  birth, 
Brings  Saviour  Christ  again  to  earth." 

Or,  better,  I  would  have  seen  the  Master 
blessing  little  children,  taking  them  up  in 
His  arms  and  saying  to  the  Hebrew  mothers 
that  stood  about  with  wondering  eyes: 


"The  last  seen  of  Dale  he  was  gathering  together  a  crowd 
of  little  children." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE  89 

"Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto 
me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

And  perhaps  I  should  have  heard  the 
echo  of  Joaquin  Miller's  sweet  interpreta- 
tion of  that  scene,  for  when  men  die,  strange, 
sweet  memories,  old  hymns  and  verses,  old 
faces,  all  come  back: 

"Then  lifting  His  hands  He  said  lowly, 
Of  such  is  my  Kingdom,  and  then 
Took  the  little  brown  babes  in  the  holy 
White  hands  of  the  Savior  of  men; 
Held  them  close  to  His  breast  and  caressed  them; 
Put  His  face  down  to  theirs  as  in  prayer; 
Put  His  cheek  to  their  cheeks;  and  so  blessed  them 
With  baby  hands  hid  in  His  hair." 

And  I  am  certain  that  last  of  all  I  should 
have  heard  the  voice  of  the  Master  himself 
saying: 

"Insomuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the 
least  of  one  of  these  little  ones,  my  chil- 
dren, ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

Thank  God  for  a  death  like  that.  One 


90  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

could  envy  such  a  passing,  a  passing  in  the 
service  to  little  children. 

I  have  seen  some  of  the  most  magnificent 
episodes  of  service  on  the  part  of  men  in 
France,  scenes  that  have  thrilled  me  to  the 
bone. 

I  know  a  Protestant  clergyman  in  France 
who  walked  five  miles  on  a  rainy  February 
day  to  find  a  rosary  for  a  dying  Catholic 
boy. 

I  know  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretary  who  in 
America  is  the  general  secretary  of  one  of 
the  largest  organizations  in  one  of  the 
largest  Eastern  cities.  He  has  always  had 
two  hobbies:  one  is  seeing  men  made 
whole,  and  the  other  has  been  fighting 
cigarettes.  Never  bigger  fists  or  more  de- 
termined fists  pounded  down  the  walls 
that  were  building  themselves  up  around 
American  youth  in  the  cigarette  industry. 
He  was  militant  from  morning  till  night  in 
his  crusade  against  cigarettes.  Some  of  his 
friends  thought  he  was  a  fanatic.  He  even 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE  91 

lost  friends  because  of  his  uncompromising 
antagonism  to  the  cigarette. 

But  the  last  time  I  heard  of  him  he 
was  in  a  front-line  dugout.  This  was  near 
Chateau-Thierry.  The  boys  were  coming 
and  going  from  that  awful  fight.  Men  would 
come  in  one  day  and  be  dead  the  next.  He 
had  been  with  them  for  months,  and  they 
had  come  to  love  him  in  spite  of  his  fighting 
their  favorite  pastime.  They  knew  him  for 
his  uncompromising  antagonism  to  ciga- 
rettes. They  loved  him  none  the  less  for  that 
because  he  did  not  flinch.  Neither  was  he 
narrow  about  selling  them.  He  sold  them 
because  it  was  his  duty,  but  he  hated  them. 

Then  for  three  days  in  the  midst  of 
the  Chateau-Thierry  fighting  the  matches 
played  out.  Not  a  match  was  to  be  had  for 
three  days.  The  boys  were  frantic  for  their 
smokes,  for  the  nervous  strain  was  greater 
than  anything  they  had  suffered  in  their 
lives.  The  shelling  was  awful.  The  noise 
never  ceased.  Machine-gun  fire  and  bomb- 


92  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

ing  by  planes  at  night  kept  up  every  hour. 
They  saw  lifelong  friends  fall  by  their 
sides  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night. 
They  needed  the  solace  of  their  smokes. 

Their  secretary  found  two  matches  in  his 
bag.  He  lit  a  cigarette  for  a  boy,  and  the 
match  was  gone.  Then  he  used  the  other 
one.  Then  he  did  a  magnificent  piece  of 
service  for  which  his  name  shall  go  down 
forever  in  the  memory  of  those  lads.  For- 
ever shall  he  hold  their  affections  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hands.  He  proved  to  those 
boys  that  his  sense  of  service  was  greater 
than  his  prejudices.  He  kept  three  ciga- 
rettes going  for  two  days  and  two  nights 
on  the  canteen  beside  him,  smoking  them 
himself  in  order  that  that  crowd  of  boys, 
coming  and  going  into  the  battle,  in  and 
out  of  the  underground  dugout,  might 
have  a  light  for  the  cigarettes  during  the 
few  moments  of  respite  that  they  had  from 
the  fight. 

What  a  thrill  went  down  the  line  when 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE  93 

that  news  got  to  the  boys  out  there  in  the 
woods  fighting.  One  boy  told  me  that  a 
fellow  he  told  wept  when  he  heard  it. 

Another  said :  "  Good  old !  I  knew  he 

had  the  guts !"  Another  said:  "I'll  say  he's 
a  man !"  Another  came  in  one  evening  and 
said:  "I'm  going  to  quit  cigarettes  from  now. 
If  you're  that  much  of  a  man,  you're  worth 
listening  to!"  Another  said:  "If  I  get  out 
of  this  it's  me  for  the  church  forever  if  it 
has  that  kind  of  men  in  it !" 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  they  brought  their 
last  letters  to  him  before  they  went  into  the 
trenches  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  they  asked 
him  for  a  little  prayer  service  one  night 
before  they  went  into  the  trenches?  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  they  love  him  and  swear 
by  him? 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  when  one  of  them 
was  asked  how  they  liked  their  secretary, 
the  boy  said:  "Great !  He's  a  man  !" 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  when  another  boy 
was  asked  if  their  secretary  was  very  re- 


94  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

ligious,  responded  in  his  own  language: 
"Yes,  he's  as  religious  as  hell,  but  he's  a 
good  guy  anyhow!" 

That  kind  of  service  will  win  anybody, 
and  that  is  exactly  the  kind  of  service  that 
the  boys  of  the  American  army,  your  boys, 
are  getting  all  over  France  from  big,  heroic, 
unprejudiced,  fatherly,  brotherly  men,  who 
are  willing  to  die  for  their  boys  as  well  as 
to  live  for  them  and  with  them  down  where 
the  shells  are  thickest  and  the  dangers  are 
constant. 

More  than  a  hundred  Y.  M.  C.  A.  men 
gassed  and  wounded  to  date,  and  more 
than  six  killed.  One  friend  of  mine  stepped 
down  into  his  cellar  one  morning,  got  a  full 
breath  of  gas,  and  was  dead  in  two  minutes. 
There  had  been  a  gas-raid  the  day  before, 
and  the  gas  had  remained  in  the  cellar. 
Another  I  know  stayed  in  his  hut  and  served 
his  men  even  though  six  shell  fragments 
came  through  the  hut  while  he  was  doing 
it.  Another  I  know  lived  in  a  dugout  for 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE  95 

three  months,  under  shell  fire  every  day. 
One  day  a  shell  took  off  the  end  of  the  old 
chateau  in  which  he  was  serving  the  men. 
His  dugout  was  in  the  cellar.  But  he  did 
not  leave.  Another  day  another  shell  took 
off  the  other  end  of  the  chateau,  but  he 
did  not  leave.  He  had  no  other  place  to  go, 
and  the  boys  couldn't  leave,  so  why  should 
he  go  just  because  he  could  leave  if  he 
wished  ?  That  was  the  way  he  looked  at  it. 
One  man  whom  I  interviewed  in  Paris,  a 
Baptist  clergyman,  crawled  four  hundred 
yards  at  the  Chateau-Thierry  battle  with  a 
young  lieutenant,  dragging  a  litter  with 
them  across  a  stubble  wheat-field  under  a 
rain  of  machine-gun  bullets  and  shells,  in 
plain  view  of  the  Germans,  and  rescued  a 
wounded  colonel.  When  they  brought  him 
back  they  had  to  crawl  the  four  hundred 
yards  again,  pushing  the  litter  before  them 
inch  by  inch.  It  took  them  two  hours  to 
get  across  that  field.  A  piece  of  shrapnel 
went  through  the  secretary's  shoulder.  He 


96  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

is  nearly  sixty  years  of  age,  but  he  did 
not  stop  when  a  service  called  him  that 
meant  the  almost  certain  loss  of  his  own 
life. 

I  know  another  secretary,  Doctor  Dan 
Poling,  a  clergyman,  and  Pest,  a  physical 
director,  who  carried  a  wounded  German, 
who  had  two  legs  broken,  through  a  bar- 
rage of  German  shells  across  a  field  to  safety. 

But  all  the  Silhouettes  of  Service  are 
not  in  the  front  h'nes. 

There  are  two  divisions  to  the  army. 
They  used  to  be  "The  Zone  of  Advance" 
and  "The  Zone  of  the  Rear."  Now  they  call 
the  second  division  "The  Services  of  Sup- 
plies." All  the  men  who  are  not  in  the 
actual  fighting  belong  to  "  The  Services  of 
Supplies." 

"How  many  men  does  it  take  to  keep 
one  pilot  in  the  machine  flying  out  over 
those  waters  to  guard  the  transports  in?" 
I  asked  the  young  ensign  in  charge  of  a 
seaplane  station. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE  97 

"Twenty-eight,"  he  replied.  "There  are 
twenty-eight  men  back  of  every  machine 
and  every  pilot." 

The  service  that  these  men  render,  al- 
though it  is  hard  for  them  to  see  it,  is  just 
as  real  and  just  as  heroic  as  the  service 
of  those  in  the  front  lines.  The  boys  in 
"The  Services  of  Supplies"  are  eager  to 
get  up  front.  I  have  had  the  joy  of  making 
them  see  in  their  huts  and  camps  that 
their  service  is  supremely  important. 

One  cannot  tell  what  service  is  more  im- 
portant. 

When  I  landed  at  Newport  News,  the 
first  sound  that  I  heard  was  the  machine- 
gun  hammering  of  thousands  of  riveters 
building  ships.  I  know  how  vital  that  ser- 
vice is  to  the  boys  "over  there."  They  could 
not  live  without  the  ships. 

Then  I  came  from  Newport  News  to 
Washington,  on  my  way  home,  and  we 
entered  that  great  city  by  night.  The  Capitol 
dome  was  flooded  with  light.  As  I  looked 


98  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

at  it  I  said  to  myself:  "To-day  from  this 
city  emanates  the  light  of  the  world.  The 
eyes  of  the  whole  of  humanity  are  turned 
toward  this  city.  That  lighted  dome  is 
symbol  of  all  this." 

As  I  looked  out  of  the  train  window  as 
we  entered  Washington  from  Richmond, 
Virginia,  I  thought:  "Surely  not  the  ship- 
building but  the  ideals  that  go  out  from 
the  Capitol  are  the  most  important  'Ser- 
vices of  Supplies.5 ' 

The  next  morning  I  was  in  Pittsburgh. 
As  my  train  pulled  into  that  great  city,  all 
along  the  Ohio  River  I  saw  great  armies 
of  laboring  men  going  and  coming  from 
work.  As  one  tide  of  humanity  flowed  out 
of  the  mills  across  the  bridges,  another 
flowed  in,  and  I  said:  "Surely  not  the  ship- 
builders, nor  the  ideal-makers  at  Washing- 
ton, but  this  great  army  of  laboring  men 
in  America  forms  the  most  important  part 
of  'The  Services  of  Supplies' !" 

Then  I  came  to  New  York.  In  turn  I 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE  99 

spoke  before  two  significant  groups  of  men 
and  women.  One  was  a  group  of  women 
meeting  each  day  to  make  Red  Cross  band- 
ages, and  knowing  the  scarcity  of  such  in 
France,  and  knowing  how  at  times  nurses 
have  had  to  tear  up  their  skirts  to  bandage 
wounds  of  dying  boys,  I  said:  "Surely  this 
is  it!" 

Then  I  spoke  before  the  artists  of  New 
York,  with  Mr.  Charles  Dana  Gibson  head- 
ing them,  and  as  I  had  seen  their  stirring 
posters  everywhere  arousing  the  nation 
to  action,  and  knew  what  an  important 
part  the  artists  and  writers  in  France  had 
played  in  "The  Services  of  Supplies,"  I 
said:  "Surely  these  are  the  most  impor- 
tant !" 

But  I  have  found  at  last  that  none  of 
these  are  the  most  important  of  all.  There 
is  another  section  to  "The  Services  of  Sup- 
plies," and  that  is  more  important  than  the 
mechanic  behind  the  pilot,  more  important 
than  the  man  who  assembles  the  motor 


100  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

trucks  and  the  ambulances  in  France,  more 
important  than  the  ship-builders,  more 
important  than  the  lawmakers  themselves, 
more  important  even  than  the  President, 
more  important  than  that  great  army  of 
laborers  which  I  saw  in  Pittsburgh,  more 
important  than  the  artists  and  the  Red 
Cross  workers,  and  that  supreme  and  im- 
portant part  of  the  great  "Services  of  Sup- 
plies" is  the  father  and  mother,  the  wife,  the 
child,  the  home,  the  church,  the  great  mass 
of  the  common  thinking,  feeling,  suffering, 
praying,  hoping  people  of  America.  If 
these  fail,  all  fails.  If  these  lose  faith  and 
courage  and  hope,  all  lose  faith  and  courage 
and  hope.  If  these  grow  faint-hearted,  all 
before  them  lose  heart.  These  are  they  who 
furnish  the  real  sinews  of  war.  These  are 
they  who  must  furnish  the  morale,  the  love, 
the  letters,  the  prayers,  the  support  to  both 
government  and  soldier.  Yes,  the  common 
folks  over  here  at  home,  I  have  seen 
clearly,  are  the  most  important  part  of 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SERVICE          101 

the  great  division  of  the   army  that  we 
call  "The  Services  of  Supplies."  May  we 
never  fail  the  boy  in  France. 
These  are  the  Silhouettes  of  Service. 


I 


VIII 

SILHOUETTES    OF    SORROW 
WONDERED  at  his  hold  on  the  hearts 


of  the  boys  in  a  certain  hospital  in 
France.  It  was  a  strange  thing.  I  went 
through  the  hospital  with  him  and  it  seemed 
to  me,  judging  by  the  conversation  with 
the  boys  in  the  hundreds  of  cots,  that  he 
had  just  done  something  for  a  boy,  or  he 
was  just  in  the  process  of  doing  something, 
or  he  was  just  about  to  do  something. 

They  called  him  "daddy." 

All  day  long  I  wondered  at  his  secret,  for 
he  was  so  unlike  any  man  I  had  seen  in 
France  in  the  way  he  had  won  the  hearts  of 
the  boys.  I  was  curious  to  know.  Some- 
thing in  his  eyes  made  me  think  of  Lincoln. 
They  had  a  look  like  Lincoln  in  their  depths. 

That  night  when  I  was  about  to  leave  I 
blunderingly  stumbled  on  his  secret.  About 
the  only  ornament  in  his  bare  pine  room  in 


102 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          103 

the  hut  was  a  picture  on  the  desk.  I  seized 
on  it  immediately,  for  next  to  a  sweet-faced 
baby  about  the  finest  thing  on  earth  to 
look  at  is  a  boy  between  five  and  twelve. 
And  here  were  two,  dressed  in  plaid  suits, 
with  white  collars,  tousled  hair,  clean,  fine 
American  boys. 

I  exclaimed  as  I  picked  the  picture  up: 
"What  a  fine  pair  of  lads !" 

Then  I  knew  that  I  had,  unwittingly, 
stumbled  into  his  secret,  for  a  look  of  in- 
finite pain  swept  over  his  face. 

"They  are  both  dead.  Last  August  wife 
called  me  on  the  phone  and  said  that  some- 
thing awful  had  happened  to  the  boys. 
They  were  all  we  had,  and  I  hurried  home. 

"They  had  gone  out  on  a  Boy  Scout 
picnic.  The  older  had  gone  in  swimming  in 
the  river  and  had  gotten  beyond  his  depth. 
The  younger  went  in  after  him  and  both 
were  drowned." 

"I'm  sorry  I  brought  it  back,"  I  said 
humbly. 


104  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

He  didn't  notice  what  I  said,  but  went  on. 

"Wife  and  I  were  broken-hearted.  There 
didn't  seem  much  to  live  for.  We  had  lost 
all.  Then  came  this  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work,  and 
we  thought  that  we  would  like  to  come  over 
here  and  do  for  all  the  boys  in  the  army 
what  we  could  not  do  for  our  own.  And  now 
wife  and  I  are  here,  and  every  time  I  do 
something  for  a  wounded  boy  in  this  hos- 
pital, I  feel  as  if  I  were  serving  my  own  dear 
lads." 

"And  you  are,"  I  said.  "And  if  the 
mothers  and  fathers  of  America  know  that 
men  and  women  of  your  type  are  here 
looking  after  their  lads  it  will  give  them  a 
new  sense  of  comfort  and  you  will  be  serv- 
ing them  also." 

"And  my  wife,"  he  added.  'You  know 

the  boys  up  at call  her  'The  Woman 

with  the  Sandwiches  and  Sympathy.'  She 
got  her  name  because  one  night  a  drunken 
soldier  staggered  into  the  hut  and  asked 
for  her.  He  didn't  remember  her  name,  but 


"The  boys  call  her  'The   Woman  with  Sandwiches  and 
Sympathy.' " 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          105 

she  had  darned  his  socks,  she  had  written 
letters  for  him,  she  had  mothered  him,  she 
had  tried  to  help  him.  They  wanted  to  put 
the  poor  lad  out,  but  he  insisted  upon  see- 
ing my  wife.  Finally,  in  desperation,  seeing 
that  he  couldn't  think  of  her  name,  he  said, 
'Wan'  see  that  woman  wif  sandwiches  and 
sympathy,'  and  after  that  the  name  stuck." 

And  as  we  knelt  in  prayer  together  there 
in  the  hut  and  I  arose  to  clasp  his  hand  in 
sympathy,  I  knew  that  through  service 
there  in  France,  through  service  to  your 
sons,  mothers  and  fathers  of  America,  this 
brave  man,  as  well  as  his  wife,  were  solac- 
ing their  grief.  They  were  conquering  sor- 
row in  service,  thank  God. 

Yes,  there  are  Silhouettes  of  Sorrow,  but 
these  silhouettes  always  have  back  of  them 
the  gold  of  a  new  dawn  of  hope.  They  are 
black  silhouettes,  but  they  have  a  glorious 
background  of  sunrise  and  hope.  I  tell  of 
no  sorrows  here  that  are  not  triumphant 
sorrows,  such  as  will  hearten  the  whole 


106  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

world  to  bear  its  sorrow  well  when  it 
comes,  pray  God. 

Up  at  on  the  beautiful  Loire  is 

my  friend  the  secretary.  It  is  a  humble 
position,  and  there  are  not  many  soldiers 
there,  but  he  is  serving  and  brothering, 
tenderly  and  faithfully,  the  few  that  are 
there.  No  one  would  ever  think  of  him  as  a 
hero,  but  I  do.  He,  too,  is  a  hero  who  is 
conquering  sorrow  in  service. 

His  only  daughter  had  been  accepted  for 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  service  in  France.  She  was  all 
he  had.  He  was  a  minister  at  home,  and  had 
given  up  his  church  for  the  duration  of  the 
war.  Both  were  looking  forward  with  keen 
anticipation  to  her  coming  to  France.  Then 
came  the  cable  of  her  death. 

I  was  there,  the  morning  it  arrived,  to 
preach  for  him.  He  said  no  word  to  me 
about  the  blow.  We  went  on  with  the  ser- 
vice as  usual.  I  noticed  that  no  hymns  had 
been  selected,  and  that  things  were  not  in 
very  good  order  for  the  service.  I  was  a 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW         107 

little  annoyed  at  this,  but  I  am  thankful 
with  all  my  heart  this  day  that  I  said 
nothing.  I  had  decided  in  my  heart  that 
he  was  not  a  very  efficient  religious  di- 
rector until  I  heard  the  next  day. 

When  I  asked  him  why  he  had  not  told 
me,  he  said  a  characteristic  thing:  "I  didn't 
want  to  spoil  the  service.  I  thought  I  would 
keep  my  grief  in  my  own  heart  and  fight 
it  out  alone." 

And  fight  it  out  he  did.  Letters  kept 
coming  for  several  weeks  after  the  cable, 
letters  full  of  girlish  hope  about  France, 
and  full  of  joy  at  the  thoughts  of  seeing 
"daddy"  soon.  This  was  the  hardest  of  all. 
He  could  not  tear  up  those  precious  let- 
ters. Her  last  words  and  thoughts  were 
treasures;  all  that  he  had  left;  but  they 
were  spear-thrusts  of  pain  also.  But  bravely 
he  fought  out  his  battle  of  grief,  and  ten- 
derly he  ministered,  mothers  and  fathers  of 
America,  to  your  boys.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  they  loved  him,  that  they  went  to  him 


108  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

with  their  loneliness  and  their  heartaches; 
is  it  any  wonder  that  he  understood  all 
the  troubles  that  they  brought  and  that 
they  bring  to  him? 

And  then  there  was  the  young  secretary 
who  had  just  landed  in  France.  It  had  been 
hard  to  leave  home,  especially  hard  to 
leave  that  little  tot  of  a  six-year-old  girl, 
the  apple  of  his  eye. 

Some  of  us  who  have  such  experiences 
will  understand  this  story;  some  of  us  who 
remember  what  the  parting  from  loved  ones 
meant  when  we  went  to  France.  One  such 
I  remember  vividly. 

There  was  the  night  before  in  the  hotel 
in  San  Francisco,  when  "Betty,"  six-year- 
old,  said,  "Don't  cry,  mother.  Be  brave 
like  Betty,"  and  who  even  admonished  her 
daddy  in  the  same  way,  "Don't  cry, 
daddy!  Be  brave  like  Betty!"  for  it  was 
just  as  hard  for  the  daddy  to  keep  the  tears 
back,  as  he  thought  of  the  separation,  as 
it  was  for  the  mother. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          109 

Then  the  daddy  would  say  to  the  mother: 
"I  feel  ashamed  of  myself  to  cry  when  I 
think  of  the  thousands  of  daddies  and  hus- 
bands who  are  leaving  their  homes,  not  for 
six  months'  or  a  year's  service,  but  'for  the 
period  of  the  war,'  and  leaving  with  so 
much  more  of  a  cloud  hanging  over  them 
than  I.  I  have  every  hope  that  I  will  be 
back  with  you  in  six  or  eight  months,  but 
they " 

"Yes,  but  your  own  grief  will  make  you 
understand  all  the  better  what  it  means  to 
the  daddies  in  the  army  who  leave  their 
babies  and  their  wives,  and  oh,  dear,  be 
good  to  them!" 

Then  there  was  the  next  morning  at  the 
Oakland  pier  as  the  great  transcontinental 
train  pulled  out,  when  the  little  six-year-old 
lady  for  the  first  time  suddenly  saw  what 
losing  her  daddy  meant.  She  hadn't  visual- 
ized it  before.  Consequently,  she  had  been 
brave,  and  had  even  boasted  of  her  bravery. 
But  now  she  had  nothing  to  be  brave  about, 


110  SOLDIER;  SILHOUETTES 

for  as  the  train  started  to  move  she  sud- 
denly burst  into  sobs  and  started  down  the 
platform  after  the  train  as  fast  as  her 
sturdy  little  legs  could  carry  her,  crying 
between  sobs,  "Come  back,  daddy!  Come 
back  to  Betty !  Don't  go  away !"  with  her 
mother  after  her. 

The  daddy  had  no  easy  time  as  he 
watched  this  tragedy  of  childhood  from  the 
observation-car.  It  was  a  half-hour  before 
he  dared  turn  around  and  face  the  rest  of 
the  sympathetic  passengers. 

Going  back  on  the  ferry  to  San  Francisco 
the  weeping  did  not  cease.  In  fact  it  be- 
came contagious,  for  a  kindly  old  gentle- 
man, thinking  that  the  little  lady  was 
afraid  of  the  boat,  said:  "What's  the  mat- 
ter, dear?  Are  you  afraid?" 

"No,  sir,  I'm  not  afraid;  but  my  daddy's 
gone  to  France,  and  I  want  him  back !  I 
want  my  daddy !  I  want  my  daddy ! "  and 
the  storm  burst  again.  Then  here  and  there 
all  over  the  boat  the  women  wept.  Here 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW         111 

and  there  a  man  pulled  a  handkerchief  out 
of  his  pocket  and  pretended  to  blow  his 
nose. 

And  so  we  understand  what  it  meant  to 
this  young  secretary  when,  upon  landing 
in  France,  he  got  the  cable  telling  of  the 
death  of  his  baby  girl. 

At  first  he  was  stunned  by  the  blow. 

Then  came  a  brave  second  cable  from 
his  wife  telling  him  that  there  was  nothing 
that  he  could  do  at  home;  to  stay  at  his 
contemplated  task  of  being  a  friend  to  the 
boys. 

The  brave  note  in  the  second  cable  gave 
him  new  spirit  and  new  courage,  and  in 
spite  of  a  heavy  heart  he  went  into  a  can- 
teen, and  will  any  wonder  who  read  this 
story  that  he  has  won  the  undying  devo- 
tion of  his  entire  regiment  by  his  tireless 
self-sacrificing  service  to  the  American  boys  ? 

What  triumphs  these  are,  what  triumphs 
over  sorrow  and  pain. 

All  of  France  is  filled  with   these  Sil- 


112  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

houettes  of  Sorrow,  but  each  has  a  back- 
ground of  triumphant,  dawning  light. 

There  was  the  woman  and  child  that  I 
saw  in  the  Madeleine  in  Paris,  both  in 
black.  They  walked  slowly  up  the  steps 
and  in  through  the  great  doors  to  pray  for 
their  daddy  aviator,  who  had  been  killed  a 
year  before. 

A  man  at  the  door  told  me  that  every 
day  they  come,  that  every  day  they  keep 
fresh  the  memory  of  their  loved  one. 

"But  why  does  she  come  so  long  after 
he  is  dead?"  I  asked. 

"She  comes  to  pray  for  the  other  avi- 
ators," he  added  simply. 

It  was  a  tremendous  thing  to  me.  I  went 
into  the  great,  beautiful  cathedral  and 
reverently  knelt  beside  them  in  love  and 
thankfulness  that  no  harm  had  come  to 
my  own  wife  and  baby.  But  the  memory 
of  that  woman's  brave  pilgrimage  of  prayer 
each  day  for  a  year,  "for  the  other  aviators," 
the  picture  of  the  woman  and  child  kneel- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          113 

ing,  etched  its  way  into  my  soul  to  remain 
forever. 

"As  I  shot  down  through  the  night,  falling 
to  what  I  was  certain  was  immediate  death, 
I  had  just  one  thought,"  a  young  aviator 
said,  as  we  sat  talking  in  a  hotel  in  Paris. 

I  said:  "What  was  it?" 

"I  said  to  myself:  'What  will  the  poor 
kiddie  do  without  his  dad  ? ' ' 

Then  there  is  that  Silhouette  of  Sorrow 
that  my  friend  brought  back  from  Ger- 
many, he  who  was  on  the  Peace  Ship  Com- 
mission, and  who  saw  a  train-load  of  Ger- 
man boys  leaving  a  certain  German  town 
to  fill  in  the  gaps  caused  by  the  losses  at 
Verdun;  and  because  this  sorrow  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  mother  sorrow  of  the 
whole  world,  and  especially  of  the  American 
mother,  and  because  it  has  a  note  of  won- 
derful triumph,  I  tell  it. 

"I  thought  they  were  the  hardest  women 
in  the  world,"  he  said,  "for  as  I  watched 
them  saying  farewell  to  their  boys  there 


114  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

wasn't  a  tear.  There  was  laughter  every- 
where, shouting  and  smiles,  as  if  those  poor 
boys  were  going  off  to  school,  or  to  a  picnic, 
when  we  all  knew  that  they  were  going  to 
certain  death. 

"I  felt  like  cursing  their  indifference  to 
the  common  impulses  of  motherhood.  I 
watched  a  thousand  mothers  and  women 
as  that  train  started,  and  I  didn't  see  a 
tear.  They  stood  waving  then*  hands  and 
smiling  until  the  train  was  out  of  sight.  I 
turned  in  disgust  to  walk  away  when  a 
woman  near  me  fainted,  and  I  caught  her 
as  she  fell.  Then  a  low  moan  went  up  all 
over  that  station  platform.  It  was  as  if 
those  mothers  moaned  as  one.  There  was 
no  hysteria,  just  a  low  moan  that  swept 
over  them.  I  saw  dozens  of  them  sink  to 
the  floor  unconscious.  They  had  kept  their 
grief  to  themselves  until  their  lads  had 
gone.  They  had  sent  their  boys  away  with 
a  smile,  and  had  kept  their  heartache 
buried  until  those  lads  had  departed." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          115 

I  think  that  this  is  characteristic  of  the 
triumphant  motherhood  of  the  whole  world. 
It  is  a  Silhouette  of  Sorrow,  but  it  has  a 
background  of  the  golden  glory  of  bravery 
which  is  the  admiration  of  all  the  world. 
A  recent  despatch  says  that  a  woman,  an 
American,  sent  her  boy  away  smiling  a 
few  weeks  ago,  and  then  dropped  dead  on 
the  station,  dead  of  grief. 

One  who  has  lived  and  worked  in  France 
has  silhouette  memories  of  funeral  proces- 
sions standing  out  in  sombre  blackness 
against  a  lurid  nation.  He  has  memories 
of  funeral  trains  in  h'ttle  villages  and  in 
great  cities;  he  has  memories  of  brave  men 
standing  as  doorkeepers  in  hotels,  with 
arms  gone,  with  crosses  for  bravery  on 
their  breasts,  but  somehow  the  cloud  of 
sorrow  is  always  fringed  with  gold  and  sil- 
ver. He  has  memories  of  funeral  services  in 
Notre  Dame  and  the  Madeleine,  and  in  lit- 
tle towns  all  over  France,  but  in  and 
around  them  all  there  is  somewhere  the 


116  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

glory  of  sunlight,  of  hope,  of  courage.  In- 
deed, one  cannot  have  silhouettes,  even  of 
sorrow,  if  there  is  no  background  of  light 
and  hope. 

For  we  know  that  even  in  war-time  God 
"still  makes  roses,*'  as  John  Oxenham,  the 
English  poet,  tells  us: 

"Man  proposes — God  disposes; 
Yet  our  hope  in  Him  reposes 
Who  in  war-time  still  makes  roses." 

John  Oxenham,  one  of  the  outstanding 
poets  of  the  war,  wrote. this  verse,  and  for 
me  it  has  been  a  sort  of  a  motto  of  faith 
during  my  service  in  France.  I  have  quoted 
it  everywhere  I  have  spoken,  and  it  has 
sung  its  way  into  my  heart,  like  a  benedic- 
tion with  its  comfort  and  its  assurance. 

It  has  been  surprising,  too,  the  way  the 
boys  have  grasped  at  it.  I  have  quoted  it 
to  them  privately,  in  groups,  and  in  great 
crowds  down  on  the  line,  and  back  in  the 
rest-camps,  and  in  the  ports,  and  every- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          117 

where  I  have  quoted  it  I  have  had  many 
requests  to  give  copies  of  it  to  the  boys.  I 
quoted  it  once  in  a  negro  hut,  hesitating 
before  I  did  so  lest  they  should  not  appre- 
ciate it  enough  to  make  quoting  it  excus- 
able. But  I  took  a  chance. 

When  the  service  was  over  a  long  h'ne 
of  intelligent-looking  negro  boys  waited 
for  me.  I  thought  that  they  just  wanted  to 
shake  hands,  but  much  to  my  astonish- 
ment most  of  them  wanted  to  know  if 
I  would  give  them  a  copy  of  that  verse, 
and  so  I  was  kept  busy  for  half  an  hour 
writing  off  copies  of  that  brief  word  of 
faith. 

One  never  quite  knows  all  that  this  verse 
means  until  he  has  been  in  France  and  has 
seen  the  suffering,  the  heartache,  the  lone- 
liness, the  mud,  and  dirt  and  hurt;  the 
wounds  and  pain  and  death  which  are 
everywhere. 

Then  he  turns  from  all  the  suffering  to 
find  a  blood-red  poppy  blooming  in  the  field 


118  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

behind  him;  or  a  million  of  them  covering 
a  green  field  like  a  great  blanket.  These 
poppies  are  exactly  like  our  golden  Cali- 
fornia poppies.  Like  them  they  grow  in  the 
fields  and  along  the  hedges;  even  covering 
the  unsightly  railroad-tracks,  as  if  they 
would  hide  the  ugly  things  of  life. 

I  thought  to  myself:  "They  look  as  if 
they  had  once  been  our  golden  California 
poppies,  but  that  in  these  years  of  war 
every  last  one  of  them  had  been  dipped  in 
the  blood  of  those  brave  lads  who  have 
died  for  us,  and  forever  after  shall  they 
be  crimson  in  memory  of  these  who  have 
given  so  much  for  humanity." 

One  day  in  early  June  I  was  driving 
through  Brittany  along  the  coast  of  the 
Atlantic.  On  the  road  we  passed  many  old- 
fashioned  men,  and  women  in  their  little 
white  bonnets  and  their  black  dresses. 

We  stopped  at  a  beautiful  little  farm- 
house for  lunch.  It  attracted  us  because  of 
its  serene  appearance  and  its  cleanliness. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW         119 

A  gray-haired  little  old  woman  was  in  the 
yard  when  we  stopped  our  machine. 

The  yard  was  literally  sprinkled  with 
blood-red  poppies.  As  we  walked  in  and 
were  making  known  our  desire  for  lunch  a 
beautiful  girl  of  about  twenty-five,  dressed 
in  mourning,  stepped  to  the  doorway,  her 
black  eyes  flashing  a  welcome,  and  cried  out: 
"Welcome,  comrade  Americaine."  Behind 
her  was  a  little  girl,  her  very  image. 

I  guessed  at  once  that  in  this  quiet  Brit- 
tany home  the  war  had  reached  out  its  dev- 
astating hand.  I  had  remarked  earlier  in 
the  day  as  we  drove  along:  "It  is  all  so 
quiet  and  beautiful  here,  with  the  old-gold 
broom  flowering  everywhere  on  hedge  and 
hill,  and  with  the  crimson  poppies  blowing 
in  the  wind,  that  it  doesn't  seem  as  if  war 
had  touched  Brittany." 

A  friend  who  knew  better  said:  "But 
have  you  not  noticed  that  women  are  pull- 
ing the  carts,  women  are  tilling  the  fields? 
Look  at  that  woman  over  there  pulling  a 


120  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

plough.  Have  you  not  noticed  that  there 
are  no  men  but  old  men  everywhere  ? " 

He  was  right.  I  could  not  remember  to 
have  seen  any  young  men,  and  everywhere 
women  were  working  in  the  field,  and  in 
one  place  a  woman  was  yoked  up  with  an 
ox,  ploughing,  while  a  young  girl  drove  the 
odd  pair. 

"And  if  that  isn't  enough,  wait  until  we 
come  to  the  next  cathedral  and  I'll  show 
you  what  corresponds  to  our  *  Honor  Rolls' 
in  the  churches  back  home.  Then  you'll 
know  whether  war  has  touched  Brittany 
or  not." 

We  entered  with  reverent  hearts  the  next 
ancient  cathedral  of  Brittany,  in  a  little 
town  with  a  population  of  only  about  two 
thousand,  we  were  told,  and  yet  out  of  this 
town  close  to  five  hundred  boys  had  been 
killed  in  the  Great  War.  Their  names  were 
posted,  written  with  many  a  flourish  by 
some  village  penman.  In  the  list  I  saw  the 
names  of  four  brothers  who  had  been  killed, 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          121 

and  their  father.  The  entire  family  had  been 
wiped  out,  all  but  the  women. 

So  I  was  mistaken.  As  quiet  and  peace- 
ful as  Brittany  was  during  May  and  June, 
as  beautiful  with  broom  and  poppies  as 
were  its  fields,  it  had  not  gone  untouched 
by  the  cruel  hand  of  war.  It,  too,  had  suf- 
fered, as  has  every  hamlet,  village,  and 
corner  of  fair  France;  suffered  grievously. 

Thus  I  was  not  surprised  to  hear  that 
this  beautiful  young  woman  was  wearing 
black  because  her  husband  had  been  killed, 
and  that  the  little  girl  behind  her  in  the 
doorway  had  no  longer  any  hope  that  her 
soldier  daddy  would  some  day  come  home 
and  romp  with  her  as  of  old.  At  the  lunch 
we  were  told  all  about  it.  True,  there  were 
tears  shed  in  the  telling,  and  these  not 
alone  by  these  brave  Frenchwomen  and 
the  little  girl,  but  it  was  a  sweet,  simple 
story  of  courage.  Several  times  during  its 
telling  the  little  girl  ran  over  to  kiss  the 
tears  out  of  her  mother's  eyes,  and  to  say, 


122  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

with  such  faith  that  it  thrilled  us:  "Never 
mind,  mother,  the  Americains  are  here 
now;  they  will  kill  the  cruel  Boches." 

After  dinner  we  walked  amid  the  red 
poppies  in  the  great  lawn  that  was  the 
crowning  feature  of  that  white-stone  home. 
On  the  walls  of  the  ancient  house  grew  the 
most  wonderful  roses  that  I  have  ever  seen 
anywhere,  not  excepting  California.  Great 
white  roses,  so  large  and  fragrant  that  they 
seemed  unreal,  delicately  moulded  red  roses, 
which  unfolded  like  a  baby's  lips,  climbed 
those  ancient  stone  walls.  The  younger 
woman  cared  for  them  herself,  and  was 
engaged  in  that  task  of  love  even  before 
we  went  away. 

I  said  to  her,  in  what  French  I  could 
command:  "They  are  the  most  beautiful 
roses  I  have  ever  seen." 

"Even  in  your  own  beautiful  America?" 
she  asked  with  a  smile. 

"Yes,  more  beautiful  even  than  in  my 
own  America." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "they  are  most  beauti- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW         123 

ful,  but  they  are  more  than  that;  they  are 
full  of  hope  for  me.  They  are  my  promise 
that  I  shall  see  him  some  time  again.  They 
come  back  each  spring.  He  loved  them  and 
cared  for  them  when  he  was  alive.  Even  on 
his  leave  in  1915  he  gloried  in  them.  And 
when  they  come  back  each  spring  they 
seem  to  come  to  give  me  promise  that  I 
shall  see  him  again." 

Then  I  translated  Oxenham's  verses  about 
the  roses  for  her.  The  translation  was  poor, 
but  she  caught  the  idea,  and  her  face  beamed 
with  a  new  light,  and  she  said:  "Ah,  yes,  it 
is  as  I  believe,  that  the  good  God  who  still 
makes  the  beautiful  roses,  he  will  not  take 
him  away  from  me  forever." 

I  never  read  Oxenham's  verse  now  that 
I  do  not  see  that  little  cottage  in  Brittany 
that  has  sheltered  the  same  family  for  cen- 
turies; twined  about  with  great  red  and 
white  roses;  and  the  old  mother  and  the 
young  mother  and  the  little  lonely  girl. 

"Yet  our  hope  in  Him  reposes 
Who  in  war-time  still  makes  roses." 


124  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

'  Another  time,  down  on  the  Toul  front 
lines,  I  had  this  thought  forced  home  by  a 
strange  scene.  It  was  in  mid-March  and 
for  three  days  a  heavy  blizzard  had  been 
blowing.  I,  who  had  lived  in  California  for 
several  years,  wondered  at  this  blizzard  and 
revelled  in  it,  although  I  had  had  to  drive 
amid  its  fury,  sometimes  creeping  along  at 
a  snail's  pace,  without  lights,  down  near 
the  front  lines.  It  was  cruelly  cold  and  hard 
for  those  of  us  who  were  in  the  "truck 
gang." 

One  night  during  this  blizzard,  which 
blew  with  such  fury  as  I  have  never  seen 
before,  we  were  lost.  At  one  time  we  were 
headed  directly  for  the  German  lines,  which 
were  close,  but  an  American  sentry  stopped 
us  before  we  had  gone  very  far,  demanding 
in  stern  tones:  "Where  are  youse  guys  goin* 
that  direction?" 

I  replied:  "To  Toul." 

"To  Toul !  You're  going  straight  toward 
the  Boche  lines.  Turn  around.  You're  the 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW          125 

third  truck  that's  got  lost  in  this  blizzard. 
Back  that  opposite  way  is  your  direction." 

The  morning  after  it  had  cleared  it  was 
worth  all  the  discomfort  to  see  the  hills 
and  fields  of  France.  One  group  of  hills 
which  I  had  heard  were  the  most  heavily 
fortified  in  all  France,  loomed  like  two 
huge  sentinels  before  the  city.  The  Ger- 
mans knew  this  also,  and  military  experts 
say  that  that  is  the  reason  why  they  did 
not  try  to  reach  Paris  by  this  route  in  the 
beginning  of  the  war. 

We  were  never  permitted  on  these  hills, 
but  we  had  seen  them  belch  fire  many  a 
time  as  the  German  airplanes  came  over 
the  city. 

But  on  this  morning,  after  three  days  of 
snow,  those  great  black  hills  were  trans- 
formed, covered  with  a  pure  white  blanket. 
The  trees  were  robed  in  white.  Not  a  spot 
of  black  appeared.  Even  the  great  guns  on 
the  top  of  the  hill  looked  like  white  fingers 
pointing  toward  Berlin.  The  roads  and 


126  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

fields  and  hills  of  France  had  suddenly  been 
transformed  as  by  a  magic  wand  into  things 
beautiful  and  white. 

War  is  black.  War  is  muddy.  War  is 
bloody.  War  is  gray.  War  is  full  of  hate 
and  hurt  and  wounds  and  blood  and  death 
and  heartache  and  heartbreak  and  home- 
sickness and  loneliness. 

Thomas  Tiplady,  in  "The  Cross  at  the 
Front,"  was  right  when  he  described  war 
as  symbolized  by  the  great  black  cloud  of 
smoke  that  unrolled  in  the  sky  when  a 
great  Jack  Johnson  had  exploded.  Every- 
thing that  war  touches  it  makes  ugly,  ex- 
cept the  soul,  and  it  cannot  blacken  that. 

It  ruins  the  fields  and  makes  them  torn 
and  cut;  it  tears  the  trees  into  ragged 
stumps.  It  kills  the  grass  and  tramples  it 
underfoot.  It  takes  the  most  beautiful 
architecture  in  the  world  and  makes  a  pile 
of  dust  and  dirt  of  it.  It  takes  a  beautiful 
face  and  makes  it  horrible  with  the  scars 
of  bayonet  and  burning  gases. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW         127 

But  on  this  morning  God  seemed  to  be 
covering  up  all  of  that  ugliness  and  dirt  and 
mud  and  blackness.  Fields  that  the  day 
before  had  been  nothing  but  ugly  blotches 
were  white  and  beautiful.  Ammunition 
dumps,  horrible  in  their  suggestion  of  death, 
seemed  now  to  have  been  covered  over  and 
hidden  by  some  kindly  hand  of  love.  The 
great  brown-bronzed  hills,  the  fortifica- 
tions filled  with  death  and  horror  were 
gleaming  white  in  the  morning  sunlight. 

I  said  to  the  other  driver:  "Well,  it's  too 
beautiful  to  be  true,  isn't  it?  It's  a  shame 
to  think  that  when  we  get  back  from  the 
front  it  will  all  be  gone,  melted,  and  the 
old  mud  and  dirt  will  be  back  again." 

"  Yes,  but  it  means  something  to  me,"  he 
said. 

"What  does  it  mean?" 

"It  means  the  future." 

"What  are  you  talking  about,  man?" 

"Why,  it  means  that  some  day  this  land 
will  be  beautiful  again.  It  means  that,  im- 


128 

possible  as  that  idea  seems,  the  war  will 
cease,  that  people  will  till  these  fields 
again,  that  grass  will  grow,  that  flowers 
will  bloom  in  these  fields  again,  that  people 
will  come  back  to  their  homes  in  peace.  It 
is  symbolical  of  that  great  white  peace  that 
will  come  forever,  when  the  ugly  thing  we 
call  war  will  be  buried  so  deeply  underneath 
the  white  blanket  of  peace  and  brotherhood 
that  the  world  will  know  war  no  more.  It's 
like  a  rainbow  to  me.  It  is  a  promise.'* 

I  had  never  heard  Tom  grow  so  eloquent 
before,  and  what  he  said  sounded  Christian. 
It  sounded  like  man's  talk  to  me.  It  was 
the  dream  of  the  Christ  I  knew.  It  was  the 
dream  of  the  prophets  of  old.  It  was  Ten- 
nyson's dream.  Such  a  dream  will  not  die 
from  the  earth,  and  men  will  just  keep  on 
dreaming  it  until  some  day  it  will  come 
true,  for  — 

"Man  proposes  —  God  disposes; 
Yet  my  hope  in  Him  reposes, 
Who  in  war-time  still  makes  roses." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SORROW         129 

The  white  and  crimson  roses  of  that 
little  cottage  in  Brittany,  the  quiet  and 
peace  and  promise  and  vision  of  a  Jeanne 
d'Arc  in  the  village  of  Domremy ;  the  bloom- 
ing of  a  billion  red  poppies  in  the  fields  of 
France;  the  blanketing  of  the  earth  with 
a  covering  of  white  snow  sufficient  to  hide 
the  ugliness  of  war,  even  for  a  day,  all  give 
promise  of  the  God  who,  in  the  end,  when 
he  has  given  man  every  chance  to  redeem 
himself,  and  who,  even  amid  cruel  wars 
"still  makes  roses,"  will  finally  bring  to 
pass  "peace  on  earth;  good-will  to  men." 

"Somewhere  in  France." 


IX 

SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING 

A  LL  night  long  a  group  of  Red  Cross 
•*  *•  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.  men  and  women 
had  been  feeding  the  refugees  from  Amiens. 
There  were  two  thousand  of  them  in  one 
basement  room  of  the  Gare  du  Nord.  They 
had  not  eaten  for  forty-eight  hours.  Most 
of  them  were  little  children,  old  men,  and 
women  of  all  ages. 

Two  hundred  or  more  of  them  had  been 
in  the  hands  of  the  Germans  for  two  years, 
and  when  a  few  days  before  it  came  time 
for  the  Germans  to  open  their  second  big 
Somme  drive,  they  had  driven  these  women 
and  little  girls  out  ahead  of  them,  saying: 
"Go  back  to  the  French  now,  we  do  not 
want  you  any  longer." 

For  two  days  and  nights  these  refugees 
had  tramped  the  roads  of  France  without 
food,  many  of  them  carrying  little  babies 

130 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       131 

in  their  arms,  all  of  them  weary  and  sick 
near  unto  death. 

The  little  children  gripped  your  heart. 
As  you  handed  them  food  and  saw  their 
little  claw-like  hands  clutch  at  it,  and  as  you 
saw  them  devour  it  like  starved  animals, 
the  while  clutching  at  a  dirty  but  much- 
loved  doll,  somehow  you  could  not  see  for 
the  mists  in  your  eyes  as  you  walked  up 
and  down  the  narrow  aisles  of  that  crowded 
basement  pouring  out  chocolate  and  hand- 
ing out  food.  The  things  you  saw  every 
minute  in  that  room  hung  a  veil  over  your 
eyes,  and  you  were  afraid  all  the  while 
that  in  your  blinding  of  tears  you  would 
step  on  some  sleeping,  starving  child,  who 
was  lying  on  the  cold  floor  in  utter  exhaus- 
tion, regardless  of  food. 

One  woman  especially  attracted  me.  I 
noticed  her  time  and  time  again  as  I  walked 
past  her  with  food.  She  was  lying  on  her 
back  on  the  floor,  with  nothing  under  her, 
her  arms  thrown  back  over  her  head,  a 


132  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

child  in  her  arms,  or  rather,  lying  against 
her  breast  asleep.  She  looked  like  an  edu- 
cated, cultured  woman.  Her  features  were 
beautiful,  but  she  looked  as  if  she  had 
passed  through  death  and  hell  in  suffering. 
I  asked  her  several  times  as  I  passed  by  if 
she  wouldn't  have  some  food,  and  each 
time  she  gave  some  to  her  baby  but  took 
none  herself.  She  could  hardly  lift  her  body 
from  the  stone  basement  to  feed  the  child, 
and  feeling  that  the  thing  that  she  needed 
most  herself  was  food,  I  urged  her  to  eat, 
but  she  would  not. 

Finally  I  stopped  before  her  and  asked 
her  if  she  was  ill.  She  looked  up  into  my  face 
and  said:  "Tres  fatiguee,  monsieur!  Tres 
fatiguee,  monsieur!"  (Very  weary,  sir! 
Very  weary,  sir !) 

By  morning  she  was  rested  and  accepted 
food.  Then  she  told  me  her  story.  Two  days 
before  in  her  village  they  had  been  ordered 
by  the  army  to  leave  their  homes  in  a  half- 
hour;  everybody  must  be  gone  by  that 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       133 

time;  the  Germans  were  coming,  and  there 
was  no  time  to  lose.  She  had  hastily  gath- 
ered some  clothes  together.  The  baby  was 
lying  in  its  crib.  Her  other  child,  a  little 
six-year-old  girl,  had  gone  out  into  the 
front  of  the  home  watching  for  the  truck 
that  was  to  gather  up  the  village  people. 
A  bomb  fell  from  a  German  Gotha  and 
killed  this  child  outright,  horribly  mangling 
her  body.  This  suffering  mother  just  had 
time  to  pick  the  little  mangled  body  up 
and  lay  it  on  a  bed,  kiss  its  cheeks  good-by 
and  leave  it  there,  for  there  was  no  other 
way.  She  did  not  even  have  the  satisfaction 
of  burying  her  child. 

"Very  weary!  Very  weary!"  I  can  hear 
her  words  yet:  "Tres  fatiguee!  Tres  fa- 
tiguee!"  No  wonder  you  were  fatigued, 
mother  heart.  You  had  a  right  to  be,  weary 
unto  death.  No  wonder  you  did  not  care 
to  eat  all  that  long  horrible  night  in  the 
Gare  du  Nord. 

Loneliness  is  naturally  one  of  the  things 


134  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

with  which  our  own  boys  suffer  most.  When 
one  remembers  that  these  Americans  of 
ours  are  thousands  of  miles  away  from  their 
homes,  most  of  them  boys  who  have  never 
been  away  from  home  in  their  lives  before; 
most  of  them  boys  who  have  never  crossed 
the  ocean  before,  they  will  judge  fairly  and 
understand  better  the  loneliness  of  the 
American  soldier.  It  is  not  a  loneliness  that 
will  make  him  any  the  less  a  soldier.  Ay, 
it  is  because  of  that  very  home  love,  and 
that  very  eagerness  to  get  back  to  his  home, 
that  he  will  and  does  fight  like  a  veteran 
to  get  it  over. 

"Gosh!  I  wish  I  would  find  just  one 
guy  from  Redding ! "  a  seventeen-year-old 
boy  said  to  me  one  night  as  I  stood  in  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut.  He  was  about  the  lone- 
liest boy  I  saw  in  France.  I  saw  that  he 
needed  to  smile.  He  was  nothing  but  a 
kid,  after  all. 

"Gosh !  I  wish  I'd  see  just  one  guy  from 
San  Jose!"  I  said  with  a  smile.  Then  we 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       135 

both  laughed  and  sat  down  to  some  choc- 
olate, and  had  a  good  talk,  the  very  thing 
that  the  lad  was  hungry  for. 

He  had  been  in  France  for  nearly  a  year 
and  he  hadn't  seen  a  single  person  he  knew. 
He  had  been  sick  a  good  deal  of  the  time 
and  had  just  come  from  an  appendix  opera- 
tion. He  was  depressed  in  spirits,  and  his 
homesickness  had  poured  itself  out  in  that 
one  phrase:  "Gosh !  I  wish  I'd  see  just  one 
guy  from  Redding !" 

Those  who  do  not  think  that  homesick- 
ness comes  under  the  heading  of  "Suffering" 
had  better  look  into  the  face  of  a  truly 
homesick  American  boy  in  France  before 
he  judges. 

The  English  Tommy  is  only  a  few  hours 
from  home,  and  knows  it.  The  French  sol- 
dier is  fighting  on  his  own  native  soil,  but 
the  American  is  fighting  three  thousand 
miles  away  from  home,  and  some  of  them 
seven  thousand. 

"I  haven't  had  a  letter  in  five  months 


136 

from  home,"  a  boy  in  a  hospital  said  to 
me.  He  was  lonely  and  discouraged.  And 
right  here  may  I  say  to  the  American  peo- 
ple that  there  is  no  one  thing  that  needs 
more  constant  urging  than  the  plea  that 
you  write,  write,  write  to  your  soldier  in 
France.  He  would  rather  have  letters  than 
candy,  or  cigarettes,  or  presents  of  any 
kind,  as  much  as  he  loves  some  of  these 
material  things.  I  have  put  it  to  a  vote 
dozens  of  times,  and  the  result  is  always 
the  same;  ten  to  one  they  would  rather 
have  a  letter  from  home  than  a  package  of 
cigarettes  or  a  box  of  candy.  I  have  seen 
boys  literally  suffering  pangs  that  were  a 
thousand  times  worse  than  wounds  be- 
cause they  did  not  receive  letters  from  those 
at  home. 

"Hell !  Nobody  back  there  cares  a  damn 
about  me !  I  haven't  received  a  letter  in 
five  months ! "  a  boy  burst  out  in  my  pres- 
ence in  Nancy  one  night. 

"Have  you  no  mother  or  sister?" 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       137 

"Yes,  but  they're  careless;  they  always 
were  about  letter- writing." 

I  tried  to  fix  up  excuses  for  them,  but  it 
tested  both  my  imagination  and  my  en- 
thusiasm to  do  it.  I  could  put  no  real  heart 
into  making  excuses  for  them,  and  so  my 
words  fell  like  lame  birds  to  the  ground, 
and  the  tragedy  of  it  was  that  both  of  us 
knew  there  was  no  good  excuse.  It  was  the 
most  pitiable  case  I  saw  in  France.  God 
pity  the  careless  mother  or  sister  or  father 
or  friend  who  isn't  willing  to  take  the  time 
and  make  the  sacrifice  that  is  needed  to  at 
least  supply  a  letter  three  times  a  week  to 
the  lad  who  is  willing  to  sacrifice  his  all,  if 
need  be,  that  those  at  home  may  live  in 
peace,  free  from  the  horror  of  the  Hun. 

"Less  Sweaters 
And  More  Letters" 

might  very  well  be  the  motto  of  the  folks 
here  at  home,  for  the  boys  would  profit 
more  in  the  long  run,  both  in  their  bodies 


138  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

and  in  their  souls.  A  censor  friend  of  mine 
said  to  me  one  day:  "If  you  ever  get  a 
chance  when  you  go  home  to  urge  the  people 
of  America  to  write,  and  write,  and  write 
to  their  boys,  do  it  with  all  your  heart. 
You  could  do  no  better  service  to  the  boys 
than  that." 

"What  makes  you  feel  so  keenly  about 
it  ?  "  I  asked  him,  for  he  talked  so  earnestly 
that  it  surprised  me.  Ordinarily  you  think 
of  the  censor  as  utterly  devoid  of  humani- 
tarian impulses,  just  a  sort  of  a  machine 
to  slice  out  the  really  interesting  things  in 
your  letters,  a  great  human  blue  pencil, 
or  a  great  human  pair  of  scissors.  But  here 
was  a  censor  that  felt  deeply  what  he  was 
saying. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  he  replied,  "it  is  because 
some  of  the  letters  that  I  read  which  are 
going  back  home  from  lonely  boys,  begging 
somebody  to  write  to  them;  literally  beg- 
ging somebody,  anybody,  to  write !  It  gets 
my  goat !  I  can't  stand  it.  I  often  feel  like 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       139 

adding  a  sentence  to  some  letters  myself 
going  home,  telling  them  they  ought  to  be 
ashamed  the  way  they  treat  their  boys 
about  letter- writing;  but  the  rules  are  so 
stringent  that  I  must  neither  add  to  nor 
take  from  a  letter  save  in  the  line  of  my 
duties.  I'd  like  to  tell  a  few  of  the  people 
back  home  what  I  think  of  them,  and  I'd 
like  for  them  to  read  some  of  the  heart- 
aches that  I  read  in  the  letters  of  the  boys. 
Then  they'd  understand  how  I  feel  about 
it." 

I  shall  never  forget  my  friend  the  wrestler 
when  I  asked  how  it  was  that  he  kept  so 
clean,  and  he  replied:  "The  letters  help  a 
lot." 

I  have  seen  boys  suffering  from  wounds 
of  every  description.  I  have  seen  them  lying 
in  hospitals  with  broken  backs.  I  have  seen 
them  with  blinded  eyes.  I  have  seen  them 
with  legs  gone,  and  arms.  I  have  seen 
them  when  the  doctors  were  dressing  their 
wounds.  I  remember  one  captain  who  had 


140  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

fifty  wounds  in  his  back,  and  he  had  them 
dressed  without  a  single  cry.  I  have  seen 
them  gassed,  and  I  have  seen  them  shot 
to  pieces  with  shell  shock,  and  yet  the 
worst  suffering  I  have  seen  in  France  has 
been  on  the  part  of  boys  whose  folks  back 
home  have  neglected  them;  boys  who,  day 
after  day,  had  seen  the  other  fellows  get 
their  letters  regularly,  boys  who  had  gone 
with  hope  in  their  hearts  time  after  time 
for  letters,  and  then  had  lost  hope.  This  is 
real  suffering,  suffering  that  does  more  to 
knock  the  morale  out  of  a  lad  than  any- 
thing that  I  know  in  France. 

Silhouettes  of  Suffering  stand  out  in  my 
memory  with  great  vividness.  One  general 
cause  of  suffering  in  addition  to  the  above 
is  loneliness  in  the  heart  of  the  young  hus- 
band and  father,  who  has  a  wife  and  kiddie 
back  home. 

I  remember  one  young  officer  that  I  saw 
in  a  Paris  hotel.  He  had  been  out  in  the 
Vosges  Mountains  with  a  company  of 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       141 

wood-choppers  for  six  months.  He  had 
come  in  for  his  first  leave.  His  leave  lasted 
eight  days.  Instead  of  going  to  the  theatres 
he  sat  around  in  our  officers'  hotel  lobby 
and  watched  the  women  walking  about, 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  girls  who  were  the  hostesses 
there.  They  noticed  him  as  he  sat  there  all 
evening,  hardly  moving.  After  several  nights 
one  of  the  men  secretaries  went  up  to  him 
and  said:  "Why  don't  you  go  over  and 
talk  with  them?  They  would  be  glad  to 
talk  with  you." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "I  never  was  much  for 
women  at  home,  except  my  wife  and  kid. 
I  never  did  know  how  to  talk  to  women. 
Especially  now,  for  I've  been  up  in  the 
woods  for  six  months.  Just  let  me  sit 
here  and  look  at  'em.  That's  enough  for 
me.  Just  let  me  sit  here  and  look  at 
'em!" 

And  that  was  the  way  he  spent  his  leave, 
just  loafing  around  in  that  hotel  lobby 
watching  the  women  at  their  work. 


142  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

"This  has  been  the  loneliest  day  of  my 
life,"  a  major  said  to  me  on  Mother  Day 
in  a  great  port  of  entry. 

"Why,  major?" 

Then  he  reached  into  his  pocket  and 
pulled  out  the  picture  of  a  seven-year-old 
boy  and  that  boy's  mother. 

Suffering  ?  Yes,  of  course  I  have  seen  boys 
wounded,  as  I  have  said,  but  for  real  down- 
right suffering,  loneliness  is  worst,  and  it 
lies  entirely  within  the  province  of  the 
folks  at  home  to  alleviate  this  suffering.  I 
have  seen  a  boy  morose  and  surly,  dis- 
couraged and  grouchy  in  the  morning.  He 
didn't  know  what  was  the  matter  with 
himself.  In  the  afternoon  I  have  seen  him 
laughing  and  yelling  like  a  wild  animal  at 
play,  happy  as  a  lark. 

What  was  the  difference  ?  He  had  gotten 
a  letter. 

Then  there  is  the  Silhouette  of  Physical 
Suffering.  Hundreds  of  these  sombre  sil- 
houettes stand  out  against  a  lurid  back- 


What  was  the  difference?     He  had  gotten  a  letter. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       143 

ground  of  fire  and  blood.  One  only  I  quote 
because  it  has  a  fringe  of  hope. 

The  boy's  back  was  broken.  It  had  been 
broken  by  a  shell  concussion.  There  were  no 
visible  signs  of  a  wound  on  his  body  any- 
where, the  doctors  told  me  in  the  hospital. 
He  did  not  know  it  as  yet.  He  thought  it 
was  his  leg  that  was  hurt.  They  asked  me  to 
tell  him,  as  gently  as  I  could.  It  was  a 
hard  task  to  give  a  man. 

He  was  lying  on  a  raised  bed  so  that, 
when  I  went  up  to  it,  it  came  up  to  my 
neck  almost,  and  when  I  talked  with  the 
lad  I  could  look  straight  into  his  eyes. 
Those  eyes  I  shall  never  forget,  they  were 
so  fearless,  so  brave,  and  yet  so  full  of 
weariness  and  suffering. 

I  took  his  hand  and  said:  "Boy,  I  am  a 
preacher."  For  once  I  didn't  say  anything 
about  being  a  secretary.  I  just  told  him  I 
was  a  preacher. 

He  said:  "I  am  so  glad  you  have  come. 
I  just  wanted  to  see  a  real,  honest-to- 


144  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

goodness  preacher."  He  forced  a  smile  to 
accompany  this  sentence. 

"Well,  I'm  all  of  that,  and  proud  of  it," 
I  replied,  smiling  back  into  his  brave 
eyes. 

"I'm  so  tired.  I  try  to  be  brave,  but  I've 
been  lying  here  for  three  months  now,  and 
my  leg  doesn't  seem  to  get  any  better.  It 
pains  all  the  time  until  I  think  I'll  die  with 
the  agony  of  it.  I  never  sleep  only  when 
they  give  me  something.  But  I  try  hard  to 
be  brave." 

"You  are  brave!"  I  said  to  him.  "They 
all  tell  me  that,  the  doctors  and  nurses." 

"They  are  so  good  to  me,"  he  said  in 
low  tones  so  that  I  had  to  bend  to  hear 
them.  "But  my  leg;  they  don't  seem  to  be 
able  to  help  me." 

Then  I  told  him  as  gently  as  I  could  that 
it  was  not  his  leg,  that  it  was  his  back,  and 
that  he  would  likely  not  get  well.  Then  I 
tried  to  tell  him  of  the  room  in  his  Father's 
house  that  was  ready  for  him  when  he  was 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUFFERING       145 

ready  to  accept  it,  and  of  what  a  glorious 
welcome  there  was  there. 

He  reached  out  for  my  hand  in  the  semi- 
darkness  of  that  evening.  I  can  feel  his 
hand-clasp  yet.  I  didn't  know  what  to  say, 
but  a  phrase  that  had  lingered  in  my  mind 
from  an  old  story  came  to  the  rescue. 

"Don't  you  want  the  Christ  to  help  you 
bear  your  pain  ?  "  I  asked  him. 

"That  is  just  what  I  do  want,"  he  said 
simply.  "That  was  why  I  was  so  glad  you 
came  —  an  honest-to-goodness  preacher," 
and  he  smiled  again,  so  bravely,  in  spite  of 
his  suffering,  and  in  spite  of  the  news  that 
I  had  just  broken  to  him. 

Then  we  prayed.  I  stood  beside  his  bed 
holding  his  hand  and  praying.  The  room 
was  full  of  other  wounded  boys,  but  in  the 
twilight  I  doubt  if  a  lad  there  knew  what 
we  were  doing.  I  spoke  low,  just  so  he  could 
hear,  and  the  Master  knew  what  was  in 
my  heart  without  hearing. 

When  I  was  through  I  felt  a  pressure  of 


146  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

his  hand,  and  he  said:  "Now  I  feel  stronger. 
He  is  helping  me  bear  my  burden.  Thank 
you  for  coming,  and"  —  then  he  paused 
for  words  "and  —  thank  you  for  bringing 
Him." 

Yes,  there  is  suffering  in  France,  suffer- 
ing among  our  soldiers,  too,  but  suffering 
that  is  glorified  by  courage. 


SOLDIER   SILHOUETTES 


night  down  near  the  front  lines 
as  we  drove  the  great  truck  slowly 
over  the  icy  roads,  on  the  top  of  a  little 
knoll  stood  a  lone  sentinel  against  a  back- 
ground of  snow,  and  that  is  a  silhouette 
that  I  shall  never  forget. 

Another  night  there  was  a  beautiful  after- 
glow, and  being  a  lover  of  the  beautiful  as 
well  as  a  driver  of  a  truck,  I  was  lost  in  the 
wonder  of  the  crimson  flush  against  the 
western  hills. 

"Makes  me  homesick,"  said  the  big  man 
beside  me,  whose  home  is  in  the  West. 
"Looks  for  all  the  world  like  one  of  our 
Arizona  afterglows." 

"It  is  beautiful,"  I  replied,  and  then  we 
were  both  lost  in  silent  appreciation  of  the 
scene  before  us,  when  suddenly  we  were 
startled  witless. 

147 


148  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

"Halt!"  rang  out  through  the  semi- 
darkness.  "Who  goes  there?" 

"Y.  M.  C.  A."  we  shot  back  as  quick  as 
lightning,  for  we  had  learned  that  it  doesn't 
pay  to  waste  time  in  answering  a  sentinel's 
challenge  down  within  sound  of  the  Ger- 
man guns. 

"Pass  on,  friends,"  was  the  grinning 
reply.  That  rascal  of  a  sentry  had  caught 
us  unawares,  lost  in  the  afterglow,  and  he 
was  tickled  over  having  startled  us  into 
astonishment. 

But  even  though  he  did  give  us  a  scare, 
I  am  sure  that  the  picture  of  him  standing 
there  in  the  middle  of  that  French  road, 
with  his  gun  raised  against  the  afterglow, 
will  be  one  of  the  outstanding  silhouettes 
of  the  memories  of  France. 

Then  there  was  the  old  Scotch  dominie 
down  at  Chateau-Thierry,  with  the  marines. 
The  boys  called  him  "Doc,"  and  loved  him, 
for  he  had  been  with  them  for  eight  months. 

One  night,  in  the  midst  of  the  hottest 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  149 

fighting  in  June,  the  old  secretary  thought 
he  would  go  out  in  the  night  and  see  how 
the  boys  were  getting  along.  He  walked 
cautiously  along  the  edge  of  the  woods 
when  suddenly  the  word  "Halt!"  shot 
out  in  low  but  distinct  tones. 

"Who  goes  there?" 

"A  friend,"  the  secretary  replied. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  is  it,  Doc?  Gee,  I'm  glad 
to  see  you !  This  is  a  darned  weird  place 
to-night.  Every  time  the  wind  blows  I 
think  it's  a  Boche." 

There  was  a  slight  noise  out  in  No  Man's 
Land.  "What's  that,  Doc,  a  Boche?" 

"I  think  not." 

"You  can't  tell,  Doc;  they're  everywhere. 
If  I've  seen  one,  I've  seen  ten  thousand 
to-night  on  this  watch." 

That  old  gray-haired  secretary  will  never 
forget  that  night  when  he  walked  among 
the  men  in  the  trenches  with  his  little  gifts 
and  his  word  of  cheer,  that  memorable 
night  before  the  Americans  made  them- 


150  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

selves  heroes  forever  in  the  Bois  du  Belleau. 
He  will  never  forget  the  sound  of  that  boy 
sentry's  voice  when  he  said,  "Gee,  Doc, 
I'm  glad  it's  you";  nor  will  he  forget  the 
looks  of  the  boy  as  he  stood  there  in  the 
darkness,  the  guardian  of  America's  hopes 
and  homes,  nor  will  he  forget  the  firm,  warm 
clasp  of  the  lad's  hands  as  he  walked  away 
to  greet  others  of  his  comrades. 

These  are  Soldier  Silhouettes  that  re- 
main vivid  until  time  dies,  until  the  "springs 
of  the  seas  run  dust,"  as  Markham  says: 

"Forget  it  not  'til  the  crowns  are  crumbled; 

'Til  the  swords  of  the  Kings  are  rent  with  rust; 
Forget  it  not  'til  the  hills  lie  humbled; 
And  the  springs  of  the  seas  run  dust." 

No,  we  do  not  forget  scenes  and  moments 
like  these  in  our  lives. 

Then  there  is  the  silhouette  of  the  pro- 
file of  the  captain  of  a  certain  American 
machine-gun  company  who,  in  March, 
marched  with  his  men  into  the  Somme  line. 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  151 

He  was  an  old  football-player  back  in  the 
States,  and  we  were  having  a  last  dinner 
together  in  Paris,  a  group  of  college  men. 
After  dinner,  when  we  had  finished  dis- 
cussing the  dangers  of  the  coming  weeks, 
and  he  had  told  us  that  his  major  had  said 
to  him,  "If  fifteen  per  cent  of  us  come  out 
alive,  I  shall  be  glad,"  and  after  we  had 
drifted  back  to  the  old  college  days,  and 
home  and  babies,  and  after  he  had  shown 
us  a  picture  of  his  wife  and  his  kiddies,  it 
became  strangely  quiet  in  the  room,  and 
suddenly  he  turned  his  face  from  us,  with 
just  the  profile  showing  against  the  light 
of  the  window,  and  exclaimed:  "My  God, 
fellows,  for  a  half-hour  you  have  made  me 
forget  that  there  is  a  war,  and  I  have  been 
back  on  the  old  campus  again  playing  foot- 
ball, and  back  with  my  babies." 

Then  his  jaw  set,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  profile  of  his  face  as  that  set  look  came 
back  and  once  again  he  became  the  captain 
of  a  machine-gun  company. 


152  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

Then  there  was  the  lone  church  service 
that  my  friend  Clarke  held  one  evening  at 
a  crossroads  of  France.  He  had  held  seven 
services  that  Sunday,  one  in  a  machine- 
gun  company's  dugout,  with  six  men;  an- 
other with  a  group  of  a  dozen  men  in  a 
front-line  trench;  another  with  several  offi- 
cers in  an  officers'  dugout;  another  with  a 
battery  outfit  who  were  "On  Call,"  ex- 
pecting orders  to  send  over  a  few  shells; 
another  with  several  men  out  in  No  Man's 
Land,  on  the  sunny  side  of  an  old  upturned 
mass  of  tree  roots;  one  in  a  listening-post, 
and  finally  this  service  with  a  lone  sentry 
at  a  crossroads. 

"But  how  did  you  do  it?"  I  asked. 

"I  just  saw  him  there,"  Clarke  replied, 
"and  he  looked  lonely,  and  I  walked  up 
and  said:  'How'd  you  like  to  have  me  read 
a  little  out  of  the  Book  ? ' 

"'Fine! 'he  said. 

"Then  I  prayed  with  him,  standing  there 
at  the  crossroads,  and  I  asked  him  if  he 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  153 

didn't  want  to  pray.  He  was  a  church  boy 
back  home,  and  he  prayed  as  fine  a  prayer 
as  ever  I  heard.  Then  we  sang  a  hymn  to- 
gether. It  was  *  Jesus,  Lover  of  My  Soul/ 
and  neither  of  us  can  sing  much,  but  as  I 
look  back  on  it,  it  was  the  sweetest  music 
that  I  ever  had  a  part  in  making.  The  only 
thing  I  didn't  do  was  take  up  a  collection. 
Outside  of  that,  it  was  just  as  if  we  had 
gone  through  a  regular  church  service  at 
home.  I  even  preached  a  little  to  him.  No, 
not  just  preached,  but  talked  to  him  about 
the  Master." 

"Did  you  even  go  so  far  with  your  lone 
one-man  congregation  as  to  have  a  bene- 
diction?" I  asked  him. 

"No,  I  just  said  what  was  in  my  heart 
when  we  were  through,  'God  bless  and 
keep  you,  boy,'  and  went  on." 

"I  never  heard  a  finer  benediction  than 
that,  old  man,"  I  replied  with  feeling. 

And  the  silhouette  of  that  one  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
secretary  holding  a  religious  service  with 


154  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

a  lone  sentry  of  a  Sunday  evening,  bring- 
ing back  to  the  lad's  memory  sacred 
things  of  home  and  church  and  the  Christ, 
giving  him  a  new  hold  on  the  bigger,  better 
things,  bringing  the  Christ  out  to  him  there 
on  that  road,  that  silhouette  is  mine  to 
keep  forever  close  to  my  heart.  I  shall 
see  that  and  shall  smile  in  my  soul  over 
it  when  eternity  calls,  and  shall  thank 
God  for  its  sweetening  influence  in  my 
life. 

And  so  this  comfort  may  come  to  the 
mothers  and  fathers  of  America,  that 
through  the  various  agencies  of  the  Ameri- 
can army,  through  General  Pershing's  in- 
tense interest  in  righteous  things,  through 
that  Lincoln-like  Christian  leader  of  the 
chaplains,  Bishop  Brent,  through  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  the  Salvation  Army,  and 
the  Knights  of  Columbus,  your  boy  has 
his  chance,  whatever  creed,  or  race,  or 
church,  to  worship  his  God  as  he  wishes; 
and  not  one  misses  this  opportunity,  even 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  155 

the  lonely  sentinel  on  the  road.  And  the 
glorious  thing  about  it  is  that  boys  who 
never  before  thought  of  going  to  church  at 
home,  crowd  the  huts  on  Sundays  and  for 
the  good-night  prayers  on  week-days. 

Just  before  the  battle  of  Chateau-Thierry, 
"Doc,"  of  whom  I  have  spoken  in  this 
chapter  before,  said:  "Boys,  do  you  want 
a  communion  service?" 

"Yes,"  they  shouted. 

Knowing  that  there  were  Catholics  and 
Jews  and  Protestants  and  non-believers 
there,  he  said:  "Now,  anybody  who  doesn't 
want  to  take  communion  may  leave." 

Not  a  single  man  left.  Out  of  one  hundred 
or  more  men  only  two  did  not  kneel  to 
take  of  the  sacred  bread  and  wine.  Two 
Jews  knelt  with  the  others,  several  Roman 
Catholics,  and  men  of  all  Protestant  de- 
nominations. Half  of  them  were  dead  before 
another  sunrise  came  around,  but  they  had 
had  their  service. 

Every  man  has  his  opportunity  to  wor- 


156  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

ship  God  in  his  own  way  and  as  nearly  as 
possible  at  his  own  altars  in  France.  There 
was  the  story  of  "The  Rosary." 

It  was  Hospital  Hut  Number ,  and 

half  a  thousand  boys  from  the  front, 
wounded  in  every  conceivable  way,  were 
sitting  there  in  the  hut  in  a  Sunday-evening 
service.  Many  of  them  had  crutches  be- 
side them;  others  canes.  Some  of  them  had 
their  heads  bandaged;  others  of  them  car- 
ried their  arms  in  slings.  Some  of  them  had 
lost  legs,  and  some  of  them  had  no  arms 
left.  Their  eager  faces  were  lighted  with  a 
strange  light,  such  as  is  not  seen  on  land 
or  sea,  and  on  most  of  those  faces,  un- 
ashamed, ran  over  pale  cheeks  the  tears 
of  homesickness  as  the  young  corporal 
whom  I  had  taken  with  me  from  another 
town  sang  "The  Rosary."  I  have  never 
heard  it  sung  with  more  tenderness,  nor 
have  I  heard  it  sung  in  more  beautiful 
voice.  That  young  lad  was  singing  his 
heart  out  to  those  other  boys.  He  had  not 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  157 

been  up  front  himself  as  yet,  for  he  was  in 
a  base  port  attending  to  his  duties,  which 
were  just  as  important  as  those  up  front, 
but  it  was  hard  for  him  to  see  it  that  way. 
So  he  loved  and  respected  these  other  lads 
who  had,  to  his  way  of  thinking,  been 
more  fortunate  than  he,  because  they  had 
seen  actual  fighting.  He  respected  them 
because  of  their  wounds,  and  he  wanted  to 
help  them.  So  he  lifted  that  rich,  sweet, 
sympathetic  tenor  voice  until  the  great 
hut  rang  with  the  old,  old  song,  and  hearts 
were  melted  everywhere.  I  saw,  back  in  the 
audience,  a  group  of  nurses  with  bowed 
heads.  They  knew  what  the  rosary  meant 
to  those  who  suffer  and  die  in  the  Catholic 
faith.  They,  too,  had  memories  of  that 
beautiful  song.  A  group  of  officers,  includ- 
ing a  major,  all  wounded,  listened  with 
heads  bowed. 

As  I  sat  on  the  crude  stage  and  saw  the 
effects  of  his  magical  voice  on  this  crowd 
I  got  to  thinking  of  what  this  war  is  mean- 


158  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

ing  to  that  fine  understanding  of  those 
who  count  the  beads  of  the  rosary  and 
those  who  do  not.  I  had  seen  so  many 
examples  of  fine  fraternal  fellowship  be- 
tween Catholic  and  Protestant  that  I  felt 
that  I  ought  to  put  it  down  in  some  per- 
manent form. 

There  is  a  true  story  of  one  of  our 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretaries  who  was  called  to 
the  bedside  of  a  dying  Catholic  boy.  There 
was  no  priest  available,  and  the  boy  wanted 
a  rosary  so  badly.  In  his  half-delirium  he 
begged  for  a  rosary.  This  young  Protestant 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretary  started  out  for  a 
French  village,  five  miles  away,  on  foot,  to 
try  to  find  a  rosary  for  this  sick  Catholic 
boy,  and  after  several  hours'  search  he 
found  a  peasant  woman  whom  he  made 
understand  the  emergency  of  the  situation, 
and  he  got  the  loan  of  the  rosary  and  took 
it  back  through  five  miles  of  mud  to  the 
bedside  of  that  Catholic  lad,  and  comforted 
him  with  the  feel  of  it  in  his  fevered  hands 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  159 

and  the  Lope  of  it  in  his  fevered  soul.  When 
I  heard  this  story  it  stirred  me  to  the  very 
fountain  depths,  but  I  have  seen  so  much 
of  this  fine  spirit  of  service  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
since  then  that  I  have  come  to  know  that 
as  far  as  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  concerned  all 
barriers  of  church  narrowness  are  entirely 
swept  away. 

I  have  had  most  delightful  comradeship 
since  I  have  been  in  France  in  one  great 
area  as  religious  director  with  two  Knights 
of  Columbus  secretaries  and  one  father  — 
Chaplain  Davis  —  all  of  whom  say  freely 
and  eagerly:  "We  have  never  had  anything 
but  the  finest  spirit  of  co-operation  and 
friendship  from  the  Y.  M.  C.  A." 

"Why,"  added  Chaplain  Davis,  a  Catho- 
lic priest,  "why,  the  first  Sunday  I  was 
here,  when  I  had  no  place  to  take  my  boys 
for  mass,  a  secretary  came  to  me  and 
offered  me  the  hut.  It  has  always  been  that 
way." 

The  story  of  the  French  priest  who  con- 


160  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

fessed  a  dying  Catholic  boy  through  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  Protestant  secretary  inter- 
preter, in  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut,  has  been  told 
far  and  wide,  but  it  is  only  illustrative  of 
the  broadening  lines  of  Catholicism  and 
the  wider  fraternal  relations  of  all  pro- 
fessed Christians. 

The  marvellous  story  that  my  friend,  the 
French  chaplain,  tells  of  being  marooned 
in  a  shell-hole  at  Verdun  for  several  days 
with  a  Catholic  priest,  and  of  their  discus- 
sion of  religion  and  life  there  under  shell- 
fire,  and  the  tenderness  with  which  the 
Catholic  priest  kissed  the  hand  of  the 
Protestant  French  chaplain  when  the  two 
had  agreed  that,  after  all,  there  was  one 
common  God  for  a  common,  suffering  na- 
tion of  people,  and  that  this  war  would 
break  all  church  barriers  down,  and  that 
out  of  it  would  come  a  new  spirit  in  the 
Catholic  church,  a  new  brotherhood  for 
all.  That  was  an  impressive  indication  of 
the  thing  that  is  sweeping  France  to-day 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES  161 

in    church    circles,    and    that    will    sweep 
America  after  the  war. 

Then  there  is  that  other  story  of  the 
Catholic  priest  who  had  been  in  the  same 
regiment  with  a  French  Protestant  chap- 
lain, each  of  whom  deeply  respected  the 
other  because  of  the  unflinching  bravery 
that  each  had  displayed  under  intense  shell- 
fire,  and  of  the  great  love  that  each  had 
seen  the  other  show  in  two  years  of  con- 
stant warfare  in  the  same  regiment.  Then 
came  that  terrible  morning  at  Verdun,  when 
the  French  Protestant  chaplain,  the  friend 
of  the  Catholic  priest,  had  been  killed  while 
trying  to  bring  in  a  wounded  Catholic  boy 
from  No  Man's  Land.  On  the  day  of  this 
Protestant  chaplain's  funeral  the  Catholic 
priest  stood  in  God's  Acre  with  bared  head, 
and  spoke  as  tender  and  as  sincere  a 
eulogy  as  ever  a  man  spoke  over  the  grave 
of  a  dear  friend,  spoke  with  the  tears  in 
his  eyes  most  of  the  time.  Church  lines 
were  forgotten  here.  It  was  a  prophetic 


162  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

scene,  this,  where  a  Catholic  priest  spoke 
at  the  funeral  of  a  Protestant  chaplain. 
It  was  prophetic  of  that  new  church  brother- 
hood that  is  to  come  after  the  war  is  over. 


XI 

SKY    SILHOUETTES 


are  the  lights,  the  lights  of  war. 
-*-  Sometimes  they  are  just  the  stars  shin- 
ing out  that  makes  the  wounded  soldier  out 
in  No  Man's  Land  look  up,  in  spite  of  shell- 
fire  and  thunder,  in  spite  of  wounds  and 
death,  in  spite  of  loneliness  and  heartache, 
in  spite  of  mud  and  rain,  to  exclaim,  as 
Donald  Hankey  tells  us  in  a  most  wonder- 
ful chapter  of  "A  Student  in  Arms":  "God  ! 
God  everywhere,  and  underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms  !  " 

Sometimes  the  Sky  Silhouettes  number 
among  their  own  just  a  moonlight  night 
with  a  crescent  moon  sailing  quietly  and 
serenely  over  the  horizon  in  the  east,  while 
great  guns  belch  fire  in  the  west,  a  fire 
that  seems  to  shame  the  timid  moon  itself. 
Sometimes  they  are  search-lights  cleaving 
the  sky  over  a  great  city  like  Paris,  or  along 


163 


164  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

the  front  lines,  or  gleaming  from  an  air- 
ship. 

Sometimes  they  are  signal-lights  flashing 
out  of  the  darkness  from  a  patrolling  plane 
overhead,  or  a  blazing  trail  of  fire  as  a  pa- 
trol falls  to  its  death  in  a  battle  by  night. 

Sometimes  they  are  signal-lights  flash- 
ing from  an  observation  balloon  anchored 
in  the  darkness  over  the  trenches  to  guard 
the  troops  from  dangers  in  the  air. 

Sometimes  they  are  the  flashes,  the  fleet, 
swallow-like  flashes,  of  an  enemy  plane 
caught  in  the  burning,  blazing  path  of  a 
search-light,  and  then  hounded  by  it  to  its 
death. 

Sometimes  they  are  signals  flashed  from 
the  top  of  a  cruiser  on  the  high  seas  across 
the  storm-tossed  waters  to  a  little  destroyer, 
which  flashes  back  its  answer,  and  then  in 
turn  flashes  a  message  of  light  to  one  of 
the  convoying  planes  overhead  in  the  dim 
dusk  of  early  evening. 

Sometimes  these  Sky  Silhouettes  are  the 


SKY  SILHOUETTES  165 

range-finders  that  poise  in  the  air  for  a 
few  seconds,  guiding  the  air  patrols  home, 
and  sometimes  they  are  just  the  varied, 
interesting,  gleaming,  flashing  "Lights  of 
War." 


o 


XII 

THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR 

NE'S  introduction  into  the  war  zone 


and  into  war-zone  cities  and  villages, 
and  one's  visits  "down  the  line"  to  the 
front  by  night,  will  always  be  filled  with 
the  thrill  of  the  unusual  because  of  the 
Lights  of  War.  Where  lights  used  to  be, 
there  are  no  lights  now,  and  where  they 
were  not  seen  before  the  war,  they  are 
radiant  and  rampant  now. 

The  first  place  that  an  American  trav- 
eller notices  this  absence  of  lights  is  on  the 
boat  crossing  over  the  Atlantic.  From  the 
first  night  out  of  New  York  the  boats 
travel  without  a  single  light  showing. 
Every  light  inside  of  the  boat  is  covered 
with  a  heavy  black  crape,  and  the  port- 
holes and  windows  are  so  scrupulously  and 
carefully  chained  down  that  the  average 

166 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  167 

open-air  fiend  from  California  or  elsewhere 
feels  that  he  will  suffocate  before  morning 
comes,  and  even  in  the  bitterest  of  winter 
weather  I  have  known  some  fresh-air  fiends 
to  prefer  the  deck  of  the  ship,  with  all  of 
its  bitter  winds  and  cold,  to  the  inside  of  a 
cabin  with  no  windows  open.  I  stood  on 
the  deck  of  an  ocean  liner  "Somewhere  on 
the  Atlantic*  *  a  few  months  ago  as  the 
great  ship  was  ploughing  its  zigzag  course 
through  the  black  waters,  dodging  sub- 
marines. There  was  not  a  star  in  the  sky. 
There  was  not  a  light  on  the  boat.  Abso- 
lutely the  only  lights  that  one  saw  was 
when  he  leaned  over  the  railing  and  saw 
the  splash  of  innumerable  phosphorescent 
organisms  breaking  against  the  boat.  I 
have  seen  the  like  of  it  only  once  before, 
and  this  was  on  the  Pacific  down  at  Asil- 
omar  one  evening,  when  the  waves  were 
running  fire  with  phosphorescence.  It  was 
a  beautiful  sight  there  and  on  the  Atlantic 
too. 


168  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

IT  WAS  MIDNIGHT 

On  this  particular  night,  as  far  as  one 
could  see,  this  brilliant  organic  light  illu- 
minated the  sea  like  the  hands  of  my  lumi- 
nous wrist-watch  were  made  brilliant  by 
phosphorescence.  I  noticed  this  and  looked 
down  at  my  watch  to  see  what  time  it  was. 
It  was  midnight. 

As  I  looked,  my  friend,  who  was  stand- 
ing beside  me  on  the  deck,  said:  "The  last 
order  is  that  no  wrist-watches  that  are 
luminous  may  be  exposed  on  the  decks  at 
night.  That  order  came  along  with  the  or- 
der forbidding  smoking  on  the  decks  at 
night.  The  Germans  can  sight  the  light  of 
a  cigar  a  long  distance  through  their  peri- 
scopes." 

I  smiled  to  myself,  for  it  was  my  first 
introduction  to  the  romantic  part  that 
lights  and  the  lack  o'  lights  is  playing  in 
this  great  World  War.  Then  my  friend  con- 
tinued his  observations  as  we  stood  there 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  169 

on  the  aft  deck  watching  the  white  waves 
break,  glorious  with  phosphorescence.  He 
said:  "What  a  topsyturvy  world  it  is. 
Three  years  ago  if  a  great  ship  like  this 
had  dared  to  cross  the  Atlantic  without  a 
single  light  showing,  it  would  have  horri- 
fied the  entire  world,  and  that  ship  captain 
would  have  been  called  to  trial  by  every 
country  that  sails  the  seas.  He  would  have 
been  adjudged  insane.  But  now  every  ship 
sails  the  seas  with  no  navigation-lights 
showing." 

IN  WAR  COUNTRY 

But  when  one  gets  his  real  introduction 
into  the  lights  o'  war  is  when  he  gets  into 
the  war  country.  It  is  eight  o'clock  in  a 
great  French  city.  This  French  city  has 
been  known  the  world  over  for  its  brilliant 
lights.  It  has  been  known  for  its  gayly 
lighted  boulevards,  and  indeed  this  might 
apply  to  one  of  three  or  four  French  cities. 
Light  was  the  one  scintillating  character- 


170  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

istic  of  this  great  city.  The  first  night  that 
one  finds  himself  here  he  feels  as  though 
he  were  wandering  about  in  a  country  vil- 
lage at  home.  No  arc-lights  shine.  The  win- 
dow-lights are  all  extinguished.  The  few 
lights  on  the  great  boulevards  are  so  dimmed 
that  their  luminosity  is  about  that  of  a 
healthy  firefly  in  June  back  home.  One 
gropes  his  way  about,  feeling  ahead  of  him 
and  navigating  cautiously,  even  the  main 
boulevards. 

The  first  time  I  walked  down  the  streets 
of  this  great  city  at  night  I  had  the  same 
feeling  that  I  had  on  the  Atlantic.  I  was 
sailing  without  lights,  on  an  unknown 
course,  and  I  felt  every  minute  that  I  would 
bump  into  some  unseen  human  craft,  as 
indeed  I  did,  both  a  feminine  craft  and  a 
male  craft.  I  also  had  the  feeling  that  in 
this  particular  city,  in  the  darkness  I 
might  be  submarined  by  a  city  human 
U-boat,  which  would  slip  up  behind  me. 
After  having  my  second  trip  here  I  still 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  171 

have  that  feeling  as  I  walk  the  streets;  the 
unlighted  streets  of  this  city,  and  especially 
the  side-streets,  by  night. 

FRENCH  CITY  DURING  RAID 

But  the  one  time  when  you  catch  the 
very  heart  and  soul  of  the  lights  o'  war  is 
when  you  happen  to  drop  into  a  French 
city  while  the  Boches  are  making  a  raid 
overhead.  I  have  had  this  experience  in 
towns  and  villages  and  cities.  At  the  signal 
of  the  siren  the  lights  of  the  entire  city 
suddenly  snuff  out,  and  the  city  or  town 
or  village  is  in  total  darkness.  Candles  may 
be  lighted  and  are  lighted,  but  on  the  whole 
one  either  walks  the  dark  streets  flashing 
his  electric  "Ever  Ready,"  or  huddled  up 
in  a  subway  or  in  a  cellar,  or  in  a  hallway 
listening  to  the  barrage  of  defense  guns  and 
to  the  bombs  dropping,  watches  and  listens 
and  waits  in  total  darkness,  and  while  he 
waits  he  isn't  certain  half  the  time  whether 
the  noise  he  hears  is  the  dropping  of  Ger- 


172  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

man  bombs  or  the  beating  of  his  own  heart. 
Both  make  entirely  too  much  noise  for 
peace  and  comfort. 

As  one  approaches  the  front-line  cities 
and  towns  he  learns  something  more  about 
the  lights  o*  war.  It  is  dark.  He  is  in  a  little 
town  and  must  go  to  another  town  nearer 
the  front  lines.  He  is  standing  at  the  depot 
(gare).  No  lights  are  visible  save  here  and 
there  an  absolutely  necessary  red  or  green 
light,  which  is  veiled  dimly.  His  train  pulls 
silently  in.  There  is  not  a  single  light  on  it 
from  one  end  to  the  other.  It  creeps  in  like 
a  great  snake.  There  is  nobody  to  tell  you 
whether  this  is  your  train  or  not,  but  you 
take  a  chance  and  climb  into  a  compart- 
ment which  is  pitch-dark. 

HEARS  AMERICAN  VOICE 

You  have  a  ticket  that  calls  for  first- 
class  military  compartment,  but  you 
climbed  into  the  first  open  door  you  saw, 
and  didn't  know  and  didn't  care  whether 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  173 

it  was  first,  second,  third,  or  tenth  class 
just  so  you  got  on  your  way.  Your  eyes 
soon  became  accustomed  to  the  darkness 
and  you  discerned  two  or  three  forms  in 
the  seat  opposite  you.  You  wondered  if 
they  were  French,  Italians,  Belgians,  Eng- 
lish, Australians,  Canadians,  Moroccans, 
Algerians,  or  Americans.  It  was  too  dark 
to  see,  but  suddenly  you  heard  a  familiar 
voice  saying,  "Gosh,  I  wish  I  was  back  in 
little  ole  New  York,"  and  you  made  a  grab 
in  the  darkness  for  that  lad's  hand. 

All  during  your  trip  no  trainman  appears. 
You  are  left  to  your  own  sweet  will  at 
nights  in  the  war  zone  when  you  are  on  a 
train.  No  stations  are  announced.  You  are 
supposed  to  have  sense  enough  to  know 
where  you  are  going,  and  to  have  gumption 
enough  to  get  off  without  either  being  as- 
sisted or  told  to  do  so.  The  assumption,  I 
suppose,  is  that  anybody  who  travels  in 
the  war  zone  knows  where  he  is  going. 
Personally,  I  felt  like  the  American  phrase, 


174  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

<"I  don't  know  where  I'm  going  but  I'm 
on  the  way,"  and  I  tried  to  jump  off  at 
two  or  three  towns  before  I  got  to  my  own 
destination,  but  the  American  soldiers  had 
been  that  way  before  on  their  way  to  the 
trenches,  and  wouldn't  let  me  off  at  the 
wrong  place.  I  thought  surely  that  some- 
body would  come  along  to  take  my  ticket, 
but  nobody  appeared.  I  soon  found  that 
night  trains  "on  the  line"  pay  little  atten- 
tion to  such  minor  matters  as  tickets,  and 
I  have  a  pocketful  that  have  never  been 
taken  up.  Time  after  time  I  have  piled  into 
a  train  at  night,  after  buying  a  ticket  to 
my  destination;  have  journeyed  to  my 
destination,  have  gone  through  the  depot 
and  to  my  hotel  without  ever  seeing  a  train- 
man to  take  the  ticket.  I  was  let  severely 
alone.  And  even  if  a  conductor  had  come 
along  through  the  train  it  would  have  been 
too  dark  for  him  to  have  seen  me,  and  I 
am  sure  I  could  have  dodged  him  had  I 
so  desired.  Maybe  that's  the  reason  they 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  175 

don't  take  the  tickets  up.  Anyhow,  I  have 
given  you  a  picture  of  a  great  train  in  the 
war  zone,  winding  its  way  toward  the  front, 
in  complete  darkness. 

FLASH-LIGHTS 

Flash-lights  have  come  into  their  own  in 
this  war.  One  would  as  soon  think  of  living 
without  a  flash-light  as  he  would  think  of 
travelling  without  clothes  in  Greenland. 
It  simply  cannot  be  done.  In  any  city,  from 
Paris  to  the  smallest  towns  on  the  front, 
one  must  have  his  flash-light.  The  streets  of 
the  cities  and  towns  of  France  are  a  hun- 
dred times  more  crooked  than  those  of 
Boston.  If  Boston's  streets  followed  the 
cow-paths,  the  streets  of  the  cities  of  France 
followed  cows  with  the  St.  Vitus  dance. 
Around  these  streets  one  had  to  find  his 
way  by  night  with  a  flash-light,  especially 
during  an  air-raid.  One  must  have  a  flash, 
too,  for  the  houses  and  hotels  when  an  air- 
raid is  on,  and  one  must  have  it  when  one 


176  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

is  driving  a  big  truck  or  an  automobile  down 
along  the  front  lines,  for  no  lights  are  per- 
mitted on  any  machines,  official  or  other- 
wise, after  a  certain  point  is  reached.  One 
of  the  favorite  outdoor  sports  of  this 
preacher  for  a  month  was  to  lie  on  his 
stomach  on  the  front  mud-guard  of  a  big 
Fierce-Arrow  through  the  war-zone  roads, 
bumping  over  shell-holes,  with  a  little 
pocket  flash-light  playing  on  the  ground, 
searching  out  the  shell-holes,  and  trying  to 
help  the  driver  keep  in  the  road.  It  is  a 
delightful  occupation  about  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  with  a  blizzard  blowing,  and 
knowing  that  the  big  truck  is  rumbling 
along  within  sight  and  sound  of  the  German 
big  guns.  Trucks  make  more  noise  on  such 
occasions  than  a  Twentieth  Century  Lim- 
ited. "No  lights  beyond  divisional  head- 
quarters" was  the  order,  and  night  after 
night  we  travelled  along  these  roads  with 
only  an  occasional  flash  of  the  Ever  Ready 
to  guide.  And  so  it  is  that  the  flash-light  has 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  177 

come  to  its  own,  and  every  private  soldier, 
officer,  and  citizen  in  France  is  equipped 
with  one.  He  would  be  like  a  swordfish 
without  its  sword  if  he  didn't  have  it. 

LADDER  OF  LIGHT 

Then  suddenly  you  see  a  strange  finger 
of  light  reaching  into  the  sky.  Or  you  may 
liken  it  to  a  ladder  of  light  climbing  the  sky. 
Or  you  may  liken  it  to  a  lance  of  light 
piercing  the  darkness.  Or  you  may  just  call 
it  a  good,  old-fashioned  search-light,  which  it 
is.  It  is  watching  for  Hun  planes,  and  it  plays 
all  night  long  from  north  to  south,  from 
east  to  west,  restlessly,  eagerly,  quickly, 
like  a  "hound  of  the  heavens"  guarding  the 
earth.  First  it  sweeps  the  horizon,  and  then 
it  suddenly  shoots  straight  up  into  the 
zenith  like  another  sun,  and  it  seems  to 
flood  the  very  skies.  No  German  plane  can 
cut  through  that  path  of  light  without 
being  seen,  and  one  night  I  had  the  rare 
privilege  of  seeing  a  plane  caught  by  the 


178  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

search-light  on  its  ever-vigilant  patrol.  It 
was  a  thrilling  sight.  One  minute  later  the 
anti-aircraft  guns  were  thundering  away 
and  the  shrapnel  was  breaking  in  tiny 
patches  around  this  plane  while  the  search- 
lights played  on  both  the  plane  and  the 
shrapnel  patches  of  smoke  against  the  sky, 
making  a  wonderful  picture.  Military  writ- 
ers say  that  the  enemy  planes  are  more 
afraid  of  these  search-lights  than  of  the 
guns. 

But  perhaps  the  most  thrilling  sight  of 
all  is  that  dark  night  when  one  sees  for  the 
first  time  the  star-shells  along  the  horizon. 
At  first  you  may  see  them  ten  miles  away 
making  luminous  the  earth.  Then  as  you 
drive  nearer  and  nearer,  that  far-off  heat- 
lightning  effect  disappears  and  you  can 
actually  see  the  curve  of  the  star-shells 
as  they  mount  toward  the  skies  over  No 
Man's  Land  and  fall  again  as  gracefully 
as  a  fountain  of  water.  Sometimes  you  will 
see  them  for  miles  along  the  front,  making 


One  night  I  had  the  privilege  of  seeing  a  plane  caught  by 
the  search-light. 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  179 

night  day  and  lighting  up  the  fields  and 
surrounding  hills  as  though  for  a  great 
celebration. 

BURSTING  BOMBS 

The  light  of  bursting  shells  as  they  fall, 
or  of  bursting  bombs  from  an  aeroplane,  is 
a  short,  sharp,  quick  light  like  an  electric 
flash  when  a  wire  falls  or  a  flash  of  sharp 
lightning,  but  the  light  of  the  great  guns 
along  the  line  as  they  thunder  their  mis- 
siles of  death  can  be  seen  for  miles  when  a 
bombardment  is  on.  One  forgets  the  thun- 
der of  these  belching  monsters,  and  one 
forgets  the  death  they  carry,  in  the  glory 
of  the  flame  of  noonday  light  that  they 
make  in  the  night. 

Then  there  are  the  range-finders.  These 
suddenly  shoot  up  in  the  night,  steady  and 
clear,  and  remain  for  several  minutes  burn- 
ing brightly  before  they  go  out.  I  used  to 
see  these  frequently  driving  home  from  the 
front.  They  were  sent  up  from  the  hangars 


180  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

to  guide  the  French  and  American  planes 
to  a  safe  landing  by  night. 

Then  there  is  the  moonlight.  Moonlight 
nights  in  towns  along  the  war  front  are 
dreaded,  for  it  invariably  means  a  Boche 
raid.  Clear  moonlight  nights  with  a  full 
moon  are  fine  for  lovers  in  a  country  that 
is  at  peace,  but  it  may  mean  death  for 
lovers  in  a  country  that  is  at  war.  But 
moonlight  nights  are  beautiful  even  in  war 
countries,  with  dim  old  cathedrals  looming 
in  the  background,  and  the  white  villages 
of  France,  a  huge  chateau  here  and  there 
against  the  hillside  or  crowning  its  summit; 
and  the  white  roads  and  white  fields  of 
France  swinging  by.  One  forgets  there  is 
war  then,  until  he  hears  the  unmistakable 
beat  of  the  Hun  plane  overhead  and  sees  the 
flash  of  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six,  ten, 
twelve,  fifteen  bombs  break  in  a  single  field 
a  few  hundred  yards  away,  and  ths  driver 
remarks:  "I  knew  we'd  have  a  raid  to- 
night. It's  a  great  night  for  the  Boche !" 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  181 

STARLIGHT  AT  FRONT 

Then  there  is  the  starlight  on  No  Man's 
Land,  for  the  starlight  is  a  part  of  the 
lights  o'  war  just  as  are  the  moonlight  and 
the  star-shells  and  the  little  flash-lights 
and  the  range-finders  and  the  bursting 
shells  and  bombs.  But  there  are  other  more 
significant  lights  o'  war. 

There  is  the  "Light  that  Lies  in  the  Sol- 
diers' Eyes,"  of  which  my  friend  Lynn 
Harold  Hough  has  written  so  beautifully 
and  understandingly.  Only  over  here  it  is 
a  different  light.  It  is  the  light  of  a  great 
loneliness  for  home,  hidden  back  of  a  light 
that  we  see  in  the  eyes  of  the  three  soldiers 
in  the  painting  "The  Spirit  of  Seventy- 
Six."  It  is  there.  It  is  here.  One  sees  it  in 
the  eyes  of  the  lads  who  have  come  in  out 
of  the  trenches  after  they  have  had  their 
baptism  of  fire.  I  have  seen  them  come  in 
after  successfully  repulsing  a  German  raid 
and  I  have  seen  their  eyes  fairly  luminous 


182  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

with  victory,  and  that  light  says,  as  said 
the  spirit  of  France,  not  only  "They  shall 
not  pass,"  but  it  says  something  else.  It 
says:  "We'll  go  get  'em !  We'll  go  get  'em !" 
That's  the  light  o'  war  that  lies  in  the 
soldiers'  eyes  back  of  the  light  of  home.  I 
verily  believe  that  the  two  are  close  akin. 
The  American  lad  knows  that  the  sooner 
we  lick  the  Hun  the  sooner  he'll  get  back 
home,  where  he  wants  to  be  more  than  he 
wants  anything  else  on  earth. 

Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  LIGHT 

Then  there's  the  light  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
hut,  and  from  General  Pershing  down  to 
the  lowest  private  the  army  knows  that 
this  is  the  warmest,  friendliest,  most  home- 
like, most  welcome  light  that  shines  out 
through  the  darkness  of  war.  It  not  only 
shines  literally  by  night,  but  it  shines  by 
day.  I  have  seen  some  huts  back  of  the  front 
lines  lighted  by  the  most  brilliant  electricity. 
Some  of  it  is  obtained  from  local  power- 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  183 

plants,  and  some  of  it  is  made  by  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  Then  I  have  seen  some  huts 
up  near  the  lines  that  were  lighted  by  old- 
fashioned  oil-lamps.  Then  I  have  been  in 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  dugouts  and  cellars  and  holes 
in  the  ground,  up  so  close  to  the*  German 
lines  that  they  were  shelled  every  day,  and 
these  have  been  lighted  by  tallow  candles 
stuck  in  a  bottle  or  in  their  own  melted 
grease.  I  have  seen  huts  back  of  the  lines 
away  from  danger  of  air-raids  that  could 
have  their  windows  wide  open,  and  I  have 
seen  the  light  pouring  in  a  flood  out  of 
these  windows,  a  constant  invitation  to 
thousands  of  American  boys.  And  again  I 
have  seen  our  huts  in  places  so  near  the 
lines  that  the  secretaries  had  not  only  tc 
use  candles  but  to  screen  their  windows 
with  a  double  layer  of  black  cloth,  so  that 
not  a  single  ray  of  that  tiny  candle  might 
throw  its  beams  to  the  watching  German 
on  the  hill  beyond.  I  never  knew  before 
what  Shakespeare  meant  when  he  said: 


184  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

"How  far  a  tiny  candle  throws  its  beams." 
But  whether  it  has  been  in  the  more  pro- 
tected huts  back  of  the  lines  or  in  the  dan- 
gerous huts  close  to  the  lines,  the  lights  in 
the  huts  are  usually  the  only  lights  availa- 
ble for  the  boys,  and  to  these  lights  they 
flock  every  night.  It  is  a  Rembrandt  pic- 
ture that  they  make  in  the  dim  light  of 
the  candles  sitting  around  the  tables  writ- 
ing letters  by  candle-light.  It  is  their  one 
warm,  bright  spot,  for  a  great  stove  nearly 
always  blazes  away  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut, 
and  it  is  the  only  warmth  the  lad  knows. 
Few  of  the  billets  or  tents  in  France  boast 
of  a  stove. 

Two  things  I  shall  never  forget.  One  was 
the  sight  of  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut  that  I  saw 
in  a  town  far  back  of  the  trenches.  It  was 
in  the  town  where  General  Pershing's  head- 
quarters are  located.  On  the  very  tip  of 
the  hill  above  me  was  the  hut.  Its  every 
window  was  a  blaze  of  light.  It  was  the 
one  dominating,  scintillating  building  of 


THE  LIGHTS  OF  WAR  185 

the  town,  a  big  double  hut.  When  I  climbed 
the  hill  to  this  hut  I  found  it  crowded  to 
its  limits  with  men  from  everywhere.  The 
rest  of  the  town  was  dark  and  there  was 
little  life,  but  here  was  the  pulse  of  social 
life  and  comradeship,  and  here  was  the  one 
blaze  and  glory  of  light. 

The  other  sight  that  I  shall  not  forget 
was  up  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the 
German  lines.  It  was  night.  We  were  re- 
turning from  our  furtherest  hut  "down  the 
line."  We  met  a  crowd  of  American  sol- 
diers tramping  through  the  snow  and  mud 
and  cold.  They  were  shivering  even  as  they 
walked.  We  stopped  the  machine  and  gave 
them  a  lift.  I  asked  one  of  the  lads  where 
he  was  going.  He  said:  "Down  to  the  *Y* 

hut  in ."  I  said :  "  WTiere  is  your  camp  ?  " 

He  replied:  "Up  at  -  -."  I  said:  "Why, 
boy,  that's  four  miles  away  from  the  hut." 
"We  don't  care.  We  walk  it  every  night. 
It's  the  only  warm  place  in  reach  and  the 
only  place  where  we  can  be  where  there  are 


186  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

lights  at  night  and  where  we  can  get  to 
see  the  fellows  and  write  a  letter.  We  stay 
there  for  an  hour  or  two  and  tramp  back 

through  this  (censored)  mud  to  our 

billets." 

And  of  all  the  lights  o*  war  one  must 
know  that  the  lights  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
huts  cast  their  beams  not  only  into  the 
hearts  of  these  lads  but  across  the  world, 
and  sometimes  I  think  across  the  eternities, 
for  in  these  huts  innumerable  lads  are  see- 
ing the  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea, 
and  are  finding  the  light  that  lights  the 
way  to  Home.  And  these  are  the  lights  o* 
war. 


XIII 

SILHOUETTES    OF    SUNSHINE 

^  INHERE  is  laughter  and  song  and  sun- 
•••  shine  among  our  boys  in  France.  Let 
every  mother  and  father  be  sure  of  that. 
Your  boys  are  always  lonely  for  home  and 
for  you,  but  they  are  not  depressed,  and 
they  are  there  to  stay  until  the  job  is  done. 
There  are  times  of  unutterable  loneliness, 
but  usually  they  are  a  buoyant,  happy, 
human  crowd  of  American  boys. 

Those  of  us  who  have  lived  with  them, 
slept  with  them,  eaten  with  them,  come 
back  with  no  sense  of  gloom  or  depression. 
I  say  to  you  that  the  most  buoyant,  happy, 
hopeful,  confident  crowd  of  men  in  the 
wide  world  is  the  American  army  in  France. 
If  you  could  see  them  back  of  the  lines, 
even  within  sound  of  the  guns,  playing  a 
game  of  ball;  if  you  could  see  them  putting 
on  a  minstrel  show  in  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hotel 

187 


188  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

in  Paris;  if  you  could  see  a  team  of  white 
boys  playing  a  team  of  negro  boys;  if  you 
could  see  a  whole  regiment  go  in  swimming; 
if  you  could  see  them  in  a  track  meet,  you 
would  know  that,  in  spite  of  war,  they  are 
living  normal  lives,  with  just  about  the 
same  proportion  of  sunshine  and  sorrow 
as  they  find  at  home,  with  the  sunshine 
dominant. 

Some  Silhouettes  of  Sunshine  gleam 
against  the  background  of  war  like  scintil- 
lating diamonds  and 

"Send  a  thrill  of  laughter  through  the  framework 

of  your  heart; 

And  warm  your  inner  being  'til  the  tear  drops 
want  to  start." 

There  was  that  watch-trading  incident 
on  the  Toul  line. 

The  Americans  had  only  been  there  a 
week,  but  it  hadn't  taken  them  long  to 
get  acquainted  with  the  French  soldiers. 
About  all  the  two  watch-trading  Americans 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        189 

knew  of  French  was  "Oui !  Oui !"  and  they 
used  this  every  minute. 

The  American  soldiers  had  a  four-dollar 
Ingersoll  watch,  and  this  illuminated  time- 
piece had  caught  the  eye  of  the  French  sol- 
dier. He,  in  turn,  had  an  expensive,  jew- 
elled, Swiss-movement  pocket-watch.  The 
American  knew  its  value  and  wanted  it. 

They  stood  and  argued.  Several  times 
during  the  interesting  transaction  the  Amer- 
ican shrugged  his  shoulders  and  walked 
away  as  if  to  say:  "Oh,  I  don't  want  your 
old  watch.  It  isn't  worth  anything." 

Then  they  would  get  together  again, 
and  the  gesticulating  would  begin  all  over; 
the  machine-gun  staccato  of  "Oui  Oui's" 
would  rattle  again,  and  the  argument 
would  continue,  without  either  one  of  the 
contracting  parties  knowing  a  word  of  the. 
other's  language. 

At  last  I  saw  the  American  soldier  un- 
strap his  Ingersoll  and  hand  it  over  to  the 
Frenchman,  who,  in  turn,  pulled  out  the 


190  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

good  Swiss-movement  watch,  and  both 
parties  to  the  transaction  went  off  happy, 
for  each  had  gotten  what  he  wanted. 

One  of  the  funniest  things  that  happened 
in  France  while  I  was  there  was  told  me 
by  a  wounded  boy  one  Sunday  afternoon 
back  of  the  Notre  Dame  cathedral.  He  was 
invalided  from  the  Chateau-Thierry  scrap 
in  which  the  American  marines  had  played 
such  a  heroic  part.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  marines,  and  was  slightly  wounded. 
He  saw  that  I  was  a  secretary,  and  thought 
to  play  a  good  joke  on  me.  He  pulled  out 
of  his  breast-pocket  a  small  black  thing 
that  looked  and  was  bound  just  like  a 
Bible.  Its  corner  was  dented,  and  it  was 
plain  to  be  seen  that  a  bullet  had  hit  it, 
and  that  that  book  had  stopped  its  death- 
dealing  course. 

I  should  have  been  warned  by  a  gleam 
that  I  saw  in  his  eyes,  but  was  not.  I  said: 
"So  you  see  that  it's  a  good  thing  to  be 
carrying  a  Bible  around  in  your  pocket?" 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        191 

"Yes,  that  saved  my  life  last  week,"  he 
said  impressively.  Then  he  showed  me  the 
hole  in  his  blouse  where  it  had  hit.  The 
hole  was  still  torn  and  ragged.  In  the  mean- 
time I  was  opening  what  I  thought  was  his 
Bible. 

It  was  a  deck  of  cards. 

I  can  hear  that  fine  American  lad's 
laughter  yet.  It  rang  like  the  bells  of  the 
old  cathedral  itself,  in  the  shadow  of  which 
we  stood.  His  laughter  startled  the  group 
of  old  men  playing  checkers  on  a  park 
bench  into  forgetting  their  game  and  join- 
ing in  the  fun.  Everybody  stopped  to  see 
what  the  fun  was  about.  That  lad  had  a 
good  one  on  the  secretary,  and  he  was  en- 
joying it  as  much  as  the  secretary  himself. 

Then  he  said:  "Now  I'll  tell  you  a  good 
story  to  make  up  for  fooling  you." 

"You  had  better,"  I  said  with  a  sheepish 
grin. 

Then  he  began: 

"There  was  a  fellow  named  Rosenbaum 


SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

brought  in  with  me  last  week  to  the  Paris 
hospital,  wounded  in  three  places.  They 
put  me  beside  him  and  he  told  me  his  story. 

"It  was  at  Belleau  Wood  and  the 
Americans  were  plunging  through  to  the 
other  side  driving  the  Boche  before  them. 
This  Jewish  boy  is  from  New  York  City, 
and  one  of  the  favorites  of  the  whole  ma- 
rine outfit.  He  had  gotten  separated  from 
his  friends.  Suddenly  he  was  confronted 
by  a  German  captain  with  a  belching 
automatic  revolver.  The  Hun  got  him  in 
the  shoulder  with  the  first  shot.  Then  the 
American  made  a  lunge  with  his  bayonet, 
and  ran  the  captain  through  the  neck,  but 
not  before  the  captain  shot  him  twice 
through  the  left  leg.  The  two  fell  together. 
When  the  boy  from  New  York  came  to 
consciousness  he  reached  out  and  there 
was  the  dead  German  officer  lying  beside 
him. 

"The  boy  took  off  the  captain's  helmet 
first,  and  pulled  it  over  to  himself.  Then 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        193 

he  took  his  revolver  and  his  cartridge-belt 
and  piled  them  all  in  a  little  pile.  Then  he 
took  off  his  shoes  and  his  trousers  and 
every  stitch  of  clothes  that  the  officer  had 
on,  and  painfully  strapped  them  around 
himself  under  his  own  blouse.  After  he  had 
done  this  he  strapped  the  officer's  belt  on 
himself.  When  the  stretcher-bearers  got  to 
him  and  had  taken  him  to  a  first-aid  and 
the  nurses  took  his  clothes  off,  they  found 
the  officer's  outfit. 

"Say,  boy,  are  you  a  walking  pawn- 
shop?' the  good-natured  doctor  said,  and 
proceeded  to  take  the  souvenirs  away. 

"This  was  the  military  procedure,  but 
the  New  York  boy  cried  and  said:  TU  die 
on  your  hands  if  you  take  them  away.' 

"He  was  a  serious  case,  and  so  they 
humored  him  and  let  him  keep  his  sou- 
venirs, and  when  I  saw  them  take  him  out 
to  a  base  hospital  this  morning,  he  still 
had  them  strapped  to  him,  with  a  grin  on 
his  face  like  a  darky  eating  watermelon." 


194  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

"What  did  you  say  his  name  was?"  I 
asked. 

"Rosenbaum,"  the  boy  replied.  "Rosen- 
baum  from  New  York." 

"Say,  if  they'd  only  recruit  a  regiment 
like  that  from  America,  we'd  send  the 
whole  German  army  back  to  Berlin  naked," 
added  another  soldier  who  was  standing 
near. 

Then  we  all  had  another  good  laugh,' 
which  in  its  turn  disturbed  the  old  men 
playing  checkers  on  the  bench  under  the 
trees  back  of  Notre  Dame.  But  the  soldier 
who  told  me  the  story  added  thoughtfully 
a  truth  that  every  one  in  France  knows. 

"At  that,  I'm  tellin*  you,  boy,  there 
aren't  any  braver  soldiers  in  the  American 
army  than  them  Jewish  boys  from  New 
York.  I  got  'o  hand  it  to  them." 

"Yes,  we  all  do,"  I  replied. 

This  good-natured  raillery  goes  on  all 
over  the  army,  for  it  is  a  cosmopolitan 
crowd,  such  as  never  before  wore  the  uni- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        195 

form  of  the  United  States,  and  each  group, 
the  negro  group,  the  Italian  group,  the 
Jewish  group,  the  Slav  group,  the  Western 
group,  the  Southern  group,  the  Eastern 
group,  all  have  their  little  fun  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  others,  and  out  of  it  all  comes 
much  sunshine  and  laughter,  and  no  bit- 
terness. 

The  Jewish  boy  loves  to  repeat  a  good 
joke  on  his  own  kind  as  well  as  the  others. 
I  myself  saw  the  letter  that  a  Jewish  boy 
was  writing  to  his  uncle  in  New  York, 
eulogizing  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  He  was  not  an 
educated  lad,  but  he  was  a  wonderfully 
sincere  boy,  and  he  pleaded  his  cause  well. 
He  had  been  treated  so  well  by  the  "Y" 
that  he  wanted  his  uncle  to  give  all  his 
spare  cash  to  that  great  organization. 
This  is  the  letter: 

"DEAR  UNCLE: 

"This  here  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  the  goods. 
They  give  you  chocolate  when  you're  goin' 


196  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

into  the  trenches  and  they  gives  you  choc- 
olate when  you're  comin'  out  and  they  don't 
charge  you  nothin'  for  it  neither.  If  you  are 
givin'  any  money  don't  you  give  it  to  none 
of  them  Red  Crosses  nor  to  none  of  them 
Salvation  Armies,  nor  to  none  of  them 
Knights  of  Colurnbuses;  but  you  give  it 
to  them  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s.  They  treat  you 
right.  They  have  entertainments  for  you 
and  wrestlin'  matches,  and  they  give  you 
a  place  to  write.  And  what's  more,  Uncle 
they  don't  have  no  respect  fer  no  religion. 

"Yours, 

"BiLL." 

Yes,  France  is  full  of  Silhouettes  of  Sun- 
shine. There  was  the  eloquent  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
secretary.  And  while  he  didn't  exactly  know 
it,  he  too  was  adding,  his  unconscious  ray 
of  light  to  a  dull  and  desolate  world. 

The  Gothas  had  come  over  Paris  the 
night  before,  and  so  had  a  group  of  some 
one  hundred  and  fifty  new  secretaries.  The 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        197 

Gothas  had  played  havoc  with  two  blocks 
of  buildings  on  a  certain  Paris  street  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  the  bombs  they 
dropped  had  severed  the  gas-mains.  The 
result  did  have  a  look  of  desolation  I'll 
have  to  admit.  So  far  the  new  secretaries 
had  done  no  damage. 

Now  there  is  one  thing  common  to  all 
the  newly  arrived  in  France,  be  they  Y. 
M.  C.  A.  secretaries,  Knights  of  Colum- 
bus workers,  Red  Cross  men,  or  just  the 
common  garden  variety  of  "investigators," 
and  that  is  that  for  about  two  weeks  they 
are  alert  to  hear  the  bloodiest,  most  drippy, 
and  desolate-with-danger  stories  that  they 
can  hear,  for  the  high  and  holy  purpose  of 
writing  back  home  to  their  favorite  paper, 
or  to  their  wives  or  sweethearts,  of  how  near 
they  were  to  getting  killed;  of  how  the 
bombs  fell  just  a  few  minutes  before  or  just 
a  few  minutes  after  they  were  "on  that 
very  spot";  of  how  the  raid  came  the  very 
night  after  they  were  in  London  or  Paris; 


198  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

of  how  just  after  they  had  walked  along 
a  certain  street  the  Big  Bertha  had  dropped 
a  shell  there;  of  how  the  night  after  they 
had  slept  in  a  certain  hotel  down  in  Nancy 
the  Germans  blew  it  up.  We're  all  alike 
the  first  week,  and  staid  war  correspondents 
are  no  exception  to  the  rule.  It  gets  them 
all. 

I  came  on  my  friend  telling  this  crowd 
of  eager  new  secretaries  of  the  damage 
that  the  Gothas  had  done  the  night  before. 
There  they  stood  in  a  corner  of  the  hotel 
with  open  ears,  eyes,  and  mouths.  Most  of 
them  were  on  their  toes  ready  to  make  a 
break  for  their  rooms  and  get  all  the  hor- 
rible details  down  in  their  letters  home 
and  their  diaries  before  it  escaped  them. 
They  were  torn  between  a  fear  that  they 
would  forget  some  of  the  horrid  details 
and  for  fear  some  other  fellow  would  get 
the  big  story  back  home  to  the  local  paper 
before  they  could  get  it  there.  When  I 
came  in,  this  nonchalant  narrator  was  hav- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        199 

ing  the  time  of  his  young  life.  He  was 
revelling  in  description.  Color  and  fire  and 
blood  and  ruin  and  desecration  flowed  from 
his  eloquent  lips  like  water  over  Niag- 
ara. 

When  I  got  close  enough  to  hear,  he  was 
at  his  most  climactic  and  last  period  of  elo- 
quence. He  made  a  gesture  with  one  hand, 
waving  it  gracefully  into  the  air  full  length, 
with  these  words:  "Why,  gentlemen,  I 
didn't  see  anything  worse  at  the  San 
Francisco  earthquake." 

In  three  seconds  that  crowd  had  dis- 
appeared, each  to  his  own  letter,  and  each 
to  his  own  diary.  Not  a  detail  must  escape. 
How  wonderful  it  would  be  to  describe  that 
awful  destruction,  and  say  at  the  end  of 
the  letter:  "And  this  happened  just  the 
night  before  we  reached  Paris." 

Only  the  vivid  artist  of  description  and 
myself  remained  in  the  hotel  lobby,  and 
having  heard  him  mention  San  Francisco, 
my  own  home,  I  was  naturally  curious  and 


200  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

wanted  to  talk  a  bit  over  old  times,  so  I 
went  up  to  the  gentleman  and  said:  "I 
heard  you  say  to  that  gang  that  you  hadn't 
seen  anything  worse  at  the  San  Francisco 
earthquake,  so  I  thought  I'd  have  a  chat 
about  San  Francisco  with  you." 

"Why,  I  was  never  in  San  Francisco  in 
my  life,"  he  said  with  a  grin. 

"But  you  said  to  those  boys,  'I  didn't 
see  anything  worse  at  the  San  Francisco 
earthquake,"'  I  replied. 

"Well,  I  didn't,  for  I  wasn't  there.  I  just 
gave  them  guys  what  they  was  lookin'  for 
in  all  its  horrible  details,  didn't  I?  Ain't 
they  satisfied  ?  Well,  so  am  I,  bo." 

This  story  has  a  meaning  all  its  own  in 
addition  to  the  fact  that  it  produced  one 
of  the  bright  spots  in  my  experiences  in 
France.  That  eloquent  secretary  represents 
a  type  who  will  tell  the  public  about  any- 
thing he  thinks  it  wants  to  know  about  the 
"horrible  details"  of  war  in  France,  and 
facts  do  not  bafBe  his  inventive  genius. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        201 

One  characteristic  of  the  American  sol- 
dier in  France  is  his  absolute  fearlessness 
about  dangers.  He  doesn't  know  how  to  be 
afraid.  He  wants  to  see  all  that  is  going 
on.  The  French  tap  their  heads  and  say 
he  is  crazy,  a  gesture  they  have  learned 
from  America.  And  they  have  reason  to 
think  so.  When  the  "alert"  blows  for  an  air- 
raid the  French  and  English  have  learned  to 
respect  it.  Not  so  the  American  soldier. 

"Think  I'm  comin'  clear  across  that 
darned  ocean  to  see  something,  and  then 
duck  down  into  some  blamed  old  cellar  or 
cave  and  not  see  anything  that's  goin'  on ! 
Not  on  your  life.  None  o'  that  for  muh ! 
I'm  going  to  get  right  out  on  the  street 
where  I  can  see  the  whole  darned  show !" 

And  that's  just  what  he  does.  I've  been 
in  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  air-raids  in 
four  or  five  cities  of  France,  and  I  have 
never  yet  seen  many  Americans  who  took 
to  the  "abris."  They  all  want  to  see  what's 
going  on,  and  so  they  hunt  the  widest 


202  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

street,  and  the  corner  at  that,  to  watch 
the  air-raids. 

One  night  during  a  heavy  raid  in  Paris, 
when  the  French  were  safely  hidden  in  the 
"abris,"  because  they  had  sense  enough  to 
protect  themselves,  I  saw  about  twenty  so- 
ber but  hilarious  American  soldiers  march- 
ing down  the  middle  of  the  boulevard,  arm 
in  arm,  singing  "Sweet  Adelaide"  at  the  top 
of  their  voices,  while  the  bombs  were  drop- 
ping all  over  Paris,  and  a  continuous  bar- 
rage from  the  anti-aircraft  guns  was  can- 
nonading until  it  sounded  like  a  great  front- 
line battle. 

That  night  I  happened  to  be  watching 
the  raid  myself  from  a  convenient  street- 
corner.  Unconsciously  I  stood  up  against 
a  street-lamp  with  a  shade  over  me,  made 
of  tin  about  the  size  of  a  soldier's  steel 
helmet.  Along  came  a  French  street-walker, 
looked  at  me  standing  there  under  that 
tiny  canopy,  and  with  a  laugh  said  as  she 
swiftly  passed  me,  "C'est  un  abri,  mon- 


The  air-raid  had  not  dampened  her  sense  of  humor. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        203 

sieur?"  looking  up.  The  air-raid  had  not 
dampened  her  sense  of  humor  even  if  it 
had  destroyed  her  trade  for  that  night. 

Another  story  illustrative  of  the  never- 
die  spirit  of  the  Frenchwomen,  in  spite  of 
their  sorrows  and  losses:  One  night,  when 
the  rain  was  pouring  in  torrents,  a  desolate, 
chilly  night,  I  saw  a  girl  of  the  streets 
plying  her  trade,  standing  where  the  rain 
had  soaked  her  through  and  through. 
Were  her  spirits  dampened?  Was  she  dis- 
couraged? Was  she  blue?  No;  she  stood 
there  in  the  rain  humming  the  air  of  an 
opera,  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  she  was 
soaked  through  and  through,  and  cold  to 
the  bone. 

This  is  the  undying  spirit  of  France.  I 
do  not  know  whether  this  girl  was  driven 
to  her  trade  because  she  had  lost  her  hus- 
band in  the  war,  but  I  do  know  that  many 
have  been.  I  do  not  know  anything  about 
her  life.  I  do  know  that  there  she  stood, 
soaked  through  and  through,  a  frail  child 


204  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

i-. 

of  the  street,  plying  her  trade,  and  singing 

in  the  rain.  The  silhouette  of  this  frail 
girl  and  her  spirit  is  typical  of  France: 
"Her  head  though  bloody  is  unbowed." 
Somehow  that  sight  gave  me  strength. 

The  reaction  of  the  German  submarining 
in  American  waters  on  the  boys  "Over 
There"  will  be  interesting  to  home-folks. 
When  the  news  got  to  France  that  sub- 
marines were  plying  in  American  waters 
near  New  York,  did  it  produce  consterna- 
tion ?  No  !  Did  it  produce  regret  ?  No  !  Did 
it  make  them  mad  ?  No ! 

It  made  them  laugh.  All  over  France  the 
boys  laughed,  and  laughed;  laughed  up- 
roariously; doubled  up  and  laughed.  I 
found  this  everywhere.  I  do  not  attempt  to 
explain  it.  It  just  struck  their  funny  bones. 
I  heard  one  fellow  say:  "Now  the  next 
best  thing  would  be  for  a  sub  some  night, 
when  there  was  nobody  in  the  offices,  to 
throw  a  few  shells  into  one  of  those  New 
York  skyscrapers." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        205 

"I'll  say  so !  I'll  say  so !"  was  the  laugh- 
ing reply. 

"Wow!  There'd  be  somethin'  doin'  at 
home  then,  wouldn't  there  ?  "  my  friend  the 
artillery  captain  said  with  a  grin. 

But  about  the  funniest  thing  I  heard 
along  the  sunshine-producing  line  was  not 
in  France  but  coming  home  from  France, 
on  the  transport.  It  came  from  a  prisoner 
on  the  transport  who  was  sentenced  to  fif- 
teen years  for  striking  a  top-sergeant. 

One  night  outside  of  my  stateroom  I 
heard  some  words,  and  then  a  blow  struck, 
and  a  man  fall.  There  was  a  general  com- 
motion. 

The  next  morning  the  fellow  who  struck 
the  blow  was  summoned  before  the  captain 
of  the  transport. 

"See  here,  my  man,  you  are  already  sen- 
tenced for  fifteen  years,  and  it's  a  serious 
offense  to  strike  a  man  on  the  high  seas." 

"I  didn't  strike  him  on  the  high  seas, 
sir,  I  struck  him  on  the  jaw." 


206  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

The  captain  was  baffled,  but  went  on: 

"What  did  you  hit  the  man  for?" 

"He  argued  with  me.  I  can't  stand  it  to 
be  argued  with." 

"But  you  shouldn't  strike  a  man  and 
split  his  mouth  open  just  because  he  dis- 
agrees with  you,"  said  the  captain  severely. 

"I  just  don't  seem  to  be  able  to  stand  it 
to  have  a  guy  argue  with  me,"  he  replied, 
not  abashed  in  the  slightest. 

"Well,  you  go  to  your  bunk.  I'll  think  it 
over  and  tell  you  in  the  morning  what  I'll 
do  about  it,"  said  the  captain,  and  turned 
away. 

But  the  man  waited.  The  captain,  seeing 
this,  turned  and  said:  "Well,  what  do  you 
want?" 

"All  I  got  to  say,  captain,  is  that  you 
mustn't  let  any  of  them  guys  argue  with  me 
again,  for  if  they  do  I'll  do  the  same  thing 
over  if  you  give  me  fifty  years  for  it.  I 
just  can't  stand  it  to  have  a  man  argue 
with  me." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        207 

Silhouettes  of  Sunshine  ?  France  is  full  of 
them.  There  were  the  fields  full  of  a  million 
blood-red  poppies  back  in  Brittany,  and 
the  banks  of  old-gold  broom  blooming  along 
a  thousand  stone  walls;  there  were  the 
negro  stevedores  marching  to  work,  winter 
and  summer,  rain  or  shine,  night  or  day, 
always  whistling  or  singing  as  they  marched, 
to  the  wonderment  of  French  and  English 
alike.  Their  spirits  never  seemed  to  be 
dampened.  They  always  marched  to  music 
of  their  own  making.  There  was  that  base- 
ball game,  when  an  entire  company  of 
negroes,  watching  their  team  play  a  white 
team,  at  the  climax  of  the  game  when  one 
negro  boy  had  knocked  a  home  run,  ran 
around  the  bases  with  him,  more  than  two 
hundred  laughing,  shouting,  grinning,  sing- 
ing, yelling  negroes,  helping  to  bring  in  the 
score  that  won  the  game.  Then  there  was 
that  Sunday  morning  when  several  white 
captains  decided  that  their  negro  boys 
should  have  a  bath.  They  took  their  boys 


208  SOLDIER  SILHOUETTES 

down  to  an  ocean  beach.  It  was  a  bit 
chilly.  The  negroes  stripped  at  order,  but 
they  didn't  like  the  idea  of  going  into  that 
cold  ocean  water.  One  captain  solved  the 
difficulty.  He  took  his  own  clothes  off.  He 
got  in  front  of  his  men.  He  lined  them  up  in 
formation.  Then  he  said:  "Now,  boys,  we're 
going  to  play  that  ocean  is  full  of  Ger- 
mans. You  stevedores  are  always  com- 
plaining about  not  getting  up  front,  and 
you  tell  me  what  you'd  do  to  the  Germans 
if  you  once  got  up  front.  Now  I'm  going  to 
see  how  much  nerve  you've  got.  When  I 
say  *  Forward!  March!'  it  is  a  military 
order.  I'm  going  to  lead  you  into  that 
water.  We  are  going  in  military  formation. 

"'Forward!  March!'" 

And  that  company  of  black  soldiers 
marched  into  that  cold  ocean  water,  dread- 
ing it  with  all  their  souls  but  soldiers  to 
the  core,  without  a  quaver,  eyes  to  the 
front,  heads  up,  chests  out,  unflinchingly, 
up  to  their  knees,  up  to  their  waists,  up 


SILHOUETTES  OF  SUNSHINE        209 

to  their  chins,  when  the  captain  shouted 
"As  you  were !"  and  such  a  hilarious,  shout- 
ing, laughing,  splashing,  jumping,  yelling, 
fun-filled  hour  as  followed  the  world  never 
saw.  The  gleaming  of  white  teeth,  the  flash- 
ing of  ebony  limbs  through  green  water 
and  under  sparkling  sunlight  that  Sunday 
morning  was  full  of  a  fine  type  of  fun  and 
laughter  that  made  the  world  a  better  place 
to  live  in,  and  certainly  a  cleaner  place. 

War  is  grim.  War  is  serious.  War  is  full 
of  hurt  and  hate  and  pain  and  heartache 
and  loneliness  and  wounds,  and  mud  and 
death  and  dearth;  but  the  American  sol- 
dier spends  more  time  laughing  than  he 
does  crying;  more  time  singing  than  he  does 
moaning;  more  time  playing  than  he  does 
moping;  more  times  shouting  than  he  does 
whimpering;  more  time  hoping  than  he 
does  despairing;  and  because  of  this  effer- 
vescent spirit  of  sunshine  and  laughter  his 
morale  is  the  best  morale  that  any  army  in 
the  history  of  the  world  has  ever  shown. 


000127083 


STRATFORD  &  GREEN 

BOOKSELLERS 
642-644   SO.  MAIN   ST. 

S23    SO.  SPRING    ST. 
i         LOS    ANGELES 


